IRVING'S 
LIFE OF 

GOLDSMITH 











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OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

A BIOGRAPHY 



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Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 

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Browning, Mrs., Poems (Selected). 

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Byron's Shorter Poems. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

Chaucer's Prologue and Knight's Tale. 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 

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De Quincey's Confessions of an 
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Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

Early American Orations, 1760-1824. 

Eliot's Silas Marner. 

Epoch-making Papers in U. S. History. 

Franklin's Autobiography. 

Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Hawthorne's Twice-told Tales (Selec- 
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Irving's Life of Goldsmith. 

Irving's.The Alhambra. 

Irving's Sketch Book. 

Longfellow's Evangeline. 

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Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 
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Shelley and Keats : Poems. 
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^^^u^-Y' ^/r-^ni,^^. 




OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



A BIOGRAPHY 



BY 

WASHINGTON IRVING 



EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 

BY . 

GILBERT SYKES BLAKELY, A.M. (Harvard) 

TEACHER OF ENGLISH IN THE MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL 
NEW YORK CITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1903 

All rights reserved 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. I 

Two Cepies Receiver | 

SEP 16 1903 

. Coj^ynght Entry 

T^slM' *^' ^^^^ 
-CLASS eu XXc. No 

COPY B. 



COPYBIGHT, 1903, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up, electrotyped, and published August, 1903. 



•i rPc4>lis2ie^ §y •permission of*Sl(»ssrs.*&* P, Putnam's Sons 
puKltshers (?f *Qie*c9n]Dl«te and auwiocized edition of the works 



of Washington Irving.] 

>•; ••- : •: ••• ••• 



ISTortoooli 5teg0 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



i ;$^ 



CONTENTS 



Introduction : 

Sketch of living's Life 

Irving the Author . 
Subjects for Composition . 
Chronology of Irving' s Life 
Chronology of Goldsmith's Life 
Books for Reference 



Life of Oliver Goldsmith 
Preface 
Chapter I 
Chapter II 
Chapter III 
Chapter IV 
Chapter V 
Chapter VI 
Chapter VII 
Chapter VIII 
Chaptpr IX 
Chapter X 



PAGE 

ix 

xiv 

xvii 

xviii 

xix 

XX 

3 
5 

14 

26 
32 
41 
49 
55 
58 
64 
71 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ChapterXI 84 

Chapter XII 89 

Chapter XIII 94 

^ Chapter XIV 101 

Chapter XV . 109 

Chapter XVI 113 

Chapter XVII 120 

Chapter XVIII . 127 

Chapter XIX . . . . . . . . .132 

Chapter XX . . .136 

Chapter XXI 141 

Chapter XXII , .... 144 

Chapter XXIII 148 

Chapter XXIV 152 

Chapter XXV . 155 

Chapter XXVI . . 161 

Chapter XXVII . . ' 167 

Chapter XXVIII . . . . . . . . 172 

Chapter XXIX ' 178 

Chapter XXX . . . . .. . . . . 186 

Chapter XXXI . . 190 

Chapter XXXII . 194 

Chapter XXXIII .' . ... . . . 197 

Chapter XXXIV . 201 

Chapter XXXV ........ 208 

Chapter XXXVI ...... . . 216 

Chapter XXXVII ........ 220 



CONTENTS VU 

PAGE 

Chapter XXXVIII .229 

CHapter XXXIX 234 

Chapter XL 241 

Chapter XLI 244 

Chapter XLII . .249 

Chapter XLIII 253 

Chapter XLIV 258 

Chapter XLV 266 

The Deserted Village ..••... 275 

Notes 287 



A SKETCH OF IRYING'S LIFE 



Washington Irving was born in New York, April 3, 1783. 
The hmise was in William Street, between Fulton and John, 
but it has now been torn down. His Scotch father and Eng- 
lish mother liad been married in England and had emigrated 
to America more than twenty years before. At the time of 
Washington's birth the city was in the hands of the British, for 
the Revolutionary War was not yet over. It had sadly inter- 
fered with business. Half the city had been burned down, and 
many of the people had fled till better times. Among them the 
Irvings had left their home and for a short time lived in New 
Jersey; but they had returned to the beleaguered city, though 
they remained true to the country of their adoption. Before 
their baby was christened, however, the war ceased, and the 
loyal, grateful mother named him Washington. 

Some years after, when all New York was joyfully welcoming 
George Washington as our first President, a proud and devoted 
Scotch servant-girl of the Irvings addressed the general, as she 
encountered him in a small shop, with, "Please, your Honor, 
here's a bairn was named after you." The great " Father of 
his Country " patted him kindly on the head and gave him his 
blessing. 

The lad born in such a stirring time and named after the great 
hero seems to have grown up much like other boys. His stern 
Presbyterian father he feared, but his tender-hearted, sympa- 
thetic mother he loved devotedly. He was not a studious boy, 
though he early developed a marked taste for reading books of 
travel, tales of the sea, etc. Warm-hearted and full of fun, he 
had no difficulty in attaching to himself a large number of 
£riends. Two of his brothers went to Columbia College, but 

ix 



X A SKETCH OF IRVmG' S LIFE 

Washington never entered college, though his biographer says 
he never ceased in later life to regret his mistake. 

At sixteen he entered a law office, but his lack of application 
and his dislike of careful study account for the fact that he 
never knew much law and never attempted to practise. During 
these years of young manhood, the time when a boy lays the 
foundation for his future career, Irving was living a free and 
easy life, reading much, working little, going into society, where 
he was a general favorite, and taking an occasional trip into 
the country along the Hudson. As events proved, he was get- 
ting no mean training for his successful career, but he gave little 
promise then of any great success. His health, too, gave grave 
anxiety to his friends. He coughed much and had severe pains 
in his chest, so that there were not a few who predicted an early 
death. His brothers, however, determined to send him abroad 
in the hope that the voyage and life in southern Europe might 
benefit him. He was gone from 1804 to 1806, and, besides 
regaining his health, gained a wide and varied knowledge from 
his wanderings over Europe. 

As early as 1802 Irving had contributed articles to the 
Morning Chronicle, written in imitation of the periodical essays 
of Addison's time, and signed Jonathan Oldstyle. These were 
much copied and revealed some of those traits that later made 
him famous. After his return from Europe, he, in company 
with others, established a periodical, called Salmagundi, which 
was very popular during its short existence, but its young authors 
soon tired of their labor and gave it up. When he was twenty- 
six years old he published his first book, Tlie Knickerbocker 
History of Neiv York. It was a clever satire on the old Dutch 
inhabitants of the city and made a reputation for its author 
among all classes, even among the Dutch, who did not always 
relish his humor. 

While he was engaged on this his first important literary 
venture, he received a blow that nearly crushed him. He had 
formed a strong attachment for Miss Matilda Hoifman of !N"ew 
York, according to all accounts a beautiful and lovable girl. 
They were engaged to be married and were waiting till the 
young man should find something by which he could reason- 
ably hope to support a family. Suddenly, however, Miss Hoff- 



A SKETCH OF IRVING^ S LIFE xi 

man died, in her eighteenth year, and Irving was inconsolable. 
His devotion to her memory is beautiful to consider ; he carefully 
treasured a few reminders of her, but never wished to talk of 
her; her memory was sacred. He never married, though he 
was a general favorite and exceedingly fond of ladies' society, to 
say nothing of his love of a home. It is not certain that he re- 
frained from marriage because of his devotion to Miss Hoffman, 
but it is certain that he never forgot her nor outlived his grief. 

The following year, 1810, we find Washington Irving enter- 
ing into business with two of his brothers, Peter and Ebenezer. 
He did not seem to contemplate active business, for he was 
contested to take one-fifth of the profits while each of the 
others took two-fifths. In spite of this partnership, he contin- 
ued to live the easy life of a man of leisure for the next few 
years, a social favorite, not only in New York, but also in Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, and Washington. At the White House he 
was well known and was on the best of terms with Mrs. 
Madison and the ladies who gathered there. 

In 1814, roused by the war with England, he offered his ser- 
vices to the governor of New York. The latter immediately 
appointed him to a place on his staff with the title of colonel. 
This new sort of life was highly pleasing to our society gentle- 
man, as his letters of this time abundantly show. It was pleas- 
ing to him apparently, not only because it took him here and 
there in new experiences, but also because he felt that he was 
really doing a man's work, something that was worth while. 

This military work was of course of short duration, so in a 
few months he was at liberty to take up something else. At 
this juncture, in 1815, he suddenly decided to make another 
visit to Europe, a visit that was fraught with momentous conse- 
quences for him. 

After a few months spent pleasantly in travelling through 
England and Wales and in visiting friends, Irving found that 
the affairs of his firm needed attention. Accordingly he de- 
voted himself to business as he never had before, although the 
work was distasteful to him and the conditions under which he 
was laboring were extremely discouraging. For three years he 
was in fact a business man, but still found time to meet distin- 
guished men of literature : Scott, Byron, Campbell, Rogers, and 



xii A SKETCH OF IRVIWO'S LIFE 

others. The burdens grew heavier and heavier until at last, in 
1818, Washington and his brother Peter went into bankruptcy. 
He never took up business again, but was for some time in per- 
plexity over what he should do for his support. 

He was now thirty-five years old. He had studied law, but 
had never practised, nor found the work to his liking. He had 
made a failure in business. But from his boyhood he had had 
a taste for literature, though apparently he had never considered 
it as a means of livelihood. Had it not been for the business 
failure of the Irvings, we might never have had The Sketch-Book 
nor The Alhamhra. Under these hard conditions, however, he 
roused himself to show a strength of character that even his 
friends had not discovered. From the easy-going society gen- 
tleman and traveller he became an indefatigable worker. 

First The S ketch-Book was prepared and published in Amer- 
ica in seven parts, but it was so favorably received in England 
as well as in America, that an English edition was soon pub- 
lished. The book was remarkably successful, and has been 
ever since one of the classics of English literature. Two years 
later he published Bracebridge Hall, and again after three years 
The Tales of a Traveller. Then, after a year or two of rather 
unproductive work, he took up his residence in Spain, that he 
might gather material for a life of Columbus. 

It is to this three years' residence in Spain that we owe a 
large and important part of the work for which we love and 
admire the first American author to gain an international repn- 
tation. The history and traditions of Spain, as well as the 
poetic temperament of her people, appealed to his fancy. He 
forgot himself in the dim past of Moorish tradition, and lived 
again in the fairy splendor of the Alhambra. The Life of 
Columbus was published in 1828, and was soon followed by 
The Conquest of Granada, The Companions of Columbus, and 
The Alhambra. Those who had hesitated to give Irving a high 
place as an author, on the ground that his works were light and 
fanciful, praised The Life of Columbus as a book worthy of the 
great talents of its author. The English Royal Society of 
Literature awarded him a gold medal given by King George IV, 
and Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. 

Although he was busying himself with other literary projects, 



A SKETCH OF IRVING^ S LIFE xiii 

he was called to serve his country as Secretary of the Legation 
at London, and was constrained to accept it. Bnt he was grow- 
ing restive to visit his home and native land. 

During all these years, spent in England, France, Germany, 
Italy, and Spain, Irving was through and through an American. 
It is true that certain criticisms had been made upon him at 
home because of his long foreign residence, but it is safe to say 
they were not made by those who knew him. In 1832, after 
seventeen years abroad, the longing to see America became too 
strong to be resisted. He reached New York in May and re- 
ceived a welcome far beyond that ever given before to a return- 
ing Aqjerican. He was astonished at the changes in his native 
city and was overwhelmed by the attentions that he received 
on all sides. A notable public dinner was given to him in New 
York, and his name was honored in every village of the land. 

After travelling extensively through the West and South 
that he might know more of his own country, he bought a few 
acres of land on the shores of the Hudson at Tarrytown. Here 
he built a small but substantial house and made a home for 
several nieces and other members of his family. Sunnyside, as 
he called this quaint but beautiful place, was visited during 
the next twenty years by hundreds of foreigners as well as 
Americans. "Irving was most hospitable, not only to his imme- 
diate friends, but also to the large number of admirers who 
were attracted thither by his kindness and greatness of character. 

Here in the quiet of his own charming home he wrote several 
books, among them A Tour on the Prairies, Wolferfs Roost 
(a collection of essays), Mahomet and his Successors, The Life 
of Goldsmith, and The Life of Washington. The last mentioned 
he regarded his greatest work. He spent many years gather- 
ing his materials, and by his accuracy and faithfulness in de- 
tail justified the world in ranking him high as a historian. 

While he was in the midst of this his greatest work he was 
astonished one morning to receive through the mail the an- 
nouncement of his nomination by the President to the position 
of Minister to Spain. It cost him a struggle to give up his 
home and private life for four years of public life in a foreign 
land, but he was extremely gratified by the appointment, which 
he regarded an honor, not merely to himself, but also to the 



xiv IRVING THE AUTHOR 

profession of literature. Political affairs in Spain were in a 
very unsettled state, but though his position was a delicate 
one he acquitted himself so well that he was deservedly popular 
and respected both at home and in Spain. The experiment of 
appointing a literary man to a diplomatic position has since 
been several times repeated, and we can point with pride to 
Hawthorne, Lowell, Bancroft, Howells, and to Hardy, our 
present minister to Spain. 

In 1846 he joyfully returned to America and Sunnyside, to 
spend the remaining thirteen years of his life in the place that 
he loved best, surrounded by his friends, honored by his country, 
and working happily and successfully to the end. He had time 
to revise his works and had the satisfaction of seeing the new 
edition sell beyond his fondest expectations. Late in the 
autumn of 1859, in the seventy- seventh year of his age, he died 
suddenly, and was buried in the little cemetery overlooking 
the " Sleepy Hollow " that he had made famous. His home 
and his grave are still visited yearly by thousands, many of 
them schoolboys and schoolgirls, who have learned to love the 
creator of Ichabod Crane and Kip Yan Winkle. 



IRVING THE AUTHOR 

For more than forty years, as we have seen, Irving held a 
large place among English-speaking people. He has been 
called the " Father of American Literature." In the words of 
Thackeray, he was " The first ambassador whom the new world 
of letters sent to the old." But what we are interested to 
know, is what position he now holds among the large number of 
American authors who have made themselves known both at 
home and abroad, and what qualities give him the rank that he 
is conceded to have. 

It is, of course, not to be expected that all of his fifteen or 
more volumes will continue to be read. It is enough that sev- 
eral of them are read and loved hy each new generation. It is 
more than forty years since Irving died, but he is a living 
presence in American literature. He had not the creative 



IRVING THE AUTHOR XV 

power of Hawthorne, nor the intellectual grasp of Emerson, but 
in his own domain he has never been excelled. And what was 
his domain ? It was the short story or sketch representing real 
life, truth in the realm of fiction, humor, pathos. The vivid 
representations of Dutch life in The Knickerhocker History of 
New York, of English life in The Sketch-Book and Bracebridge 
Hall, of Spanish life in The Alhambra, and of American life in 
many books are vivid and are the source of perennial enjoy- 
ment. 

His several biographies are probably the most careful work 
that he did. The Life of Columbus gave him rank as a man of 
learning ; it was prepared with great care and at great expense 
of time and labor. The Life of Washington was undertaken 
by the author in the hope that it would be the greatest of his 
works, and into it he put the best thought of a mature man- 
hood. While neither of these may be put into the rank of the 
greatest biographies, they may both be regarded as entirely 
worthy of a great author. The Life of Goldsmith, while not 
a great work, is one of the most delightful of biographies. 
Irving was by nature well fitted to appreciate and sympathize 
with the checkered life of this remarkable genius. This book, 
too, illustrates well what I think is the delight of Irving's 
biographies, — it is full of stories. What should an interesting 
biography be, to be sure, but the stories of a man's life care- 
fully chosen and forcefully told ? As in the sketches, so in the 
biographies, the charm lies in the stories, vividly, clearly told. 

It is then as a story-teller and a descriptive writer that we 
must regard Irving ; it is to his sketches and stories that we 
must look to find his art. But what gives him his power? Is 
it his command of language ? Is it his easy flow of sentences ? 
His words are certainly well chosen ; they are simple and force- 
ful ; they seem to be the words just fitted for their places ; they 
are so concrete that the pictures stand out clearly, so suggestive 
that they bring a full as well as a clear meaning. And yet all 
this excellence of diction will not account for the magic of his 
style. We look in vain to his sentences, — clear, easy, logical 
though they are, and to his orderly paragraphs, — the charm is 
not here. We must look back of the words, the sentences, the 
paragraphs, to the personality, the character of the man. 



xvi IRVING THE AUTHOR 

His humor has helped us to while away many an hour that 
would otherwise have been dull, his pathos has held us firmly 
and tenderly, and his satire has amused and delighted us; but 
all these qualities combined are far short of what we call Irving. 
It is the man himself, so pure, so open, so friendly, so large it 
sympathy and judgment, that holds and pleases us. In a pe- 
culiar way we feel that we know this author. If he sometimes 
puts on a mask, he cannot hide entirely his own genial face. 
But what his character is we cannot fully express. He had a 
soundness of judgment, a wholesome view of life, a catholicity 
of spirit, which we admire and respect; and yet these only 
partly express his character. It is his large and many-sided 
seK that impresses itself upon us in every line, that reveals itself 
in a thousand ways and yet is never quite fathomable, that 
makes the work of Washington Irving, not only pleasing, but 
great. 

Charles Dudley Warner said : " And this leads me to speak 
of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot bring myself to ex- 
clude from a literary estimate, even in the face of the current 
gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made 
8cott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their 
readers, who had only the dimmest ideas of their personality. 
This was some quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one 
can define it for himself ; there it is, and I do not see why it is 
not as integral a part of the authors — an element in the esti- 
mate of their future position — as what we term their intellect, 
their knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you rate it, 
you cannot account for Irving's influence in the world with- 
out it. 

" In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, 
who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art in 
the sum total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to Lock- 
hart, — 'Be a good man, my dear.' We know well enough 
that the great author of The Newcomes, and the great author of 
The Heart of Midlothian, recognized the abiding value in litera- 
ture of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are 
beneficences ; and Irving's literature, walk round it and measure 
it by whatever critical instruments you will, is a beneficent lit- 
erature_._ The author loved good women and little children and 



COMPOSITION SUBJECTS xvii 

■^ pure life ; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy 
jwith the lowest, without any subserviency to the highest ; he 
.retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous actions, and 
j^id not care to envelop them in a cynical suspicion; he was 
an author still capable of an enthusiasm. His books are whole- 
some, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, 
, of amusement without any stain ; and their more solid qualities 
,are marred by neither pedantry nor pretension." 



COMPOSITION SUBJECTS 

1. Oliver Goldsmith — A Description. 

2. Paddy Byrne — " A capital tutor for a poet." 

3. The Boyhood of Goldsmith and the Boyhood of Irving. 

4. Goldsmith's Education. (Compare with that of Irving and 

of other literary men.) 

5. Goldsmith's Travels in Europe. (Compare with Irving's 

and with Longfellow's.) 

6. Goldsmith's Introduction to London. (Com;pare with 

Johnson's, Chapter XII, and with that of other literary 
men.) 

7. A Physician's Equipment. 

8. Goldsmith the Physician. 

9. Goldsmith and Johnson. (Compare them as writers, as 

conversationalists, as companions, as men of genius, as 

successful men.) 
LO. Goldsmith's Associates. (What two distinct classes did he 

have in London ? When he could have the higher, why 

did he often choose the lower ?) 
Johnson's Interview with the King. 
Irving's Estimate of Boswell. 
Macaulay's Estimate of Boswell. 
Goldsmith the Historian. 
Goldsmith the Dramatist. 
Goldsmith the Poet. 
Autobiographical Touches in The Vicar of Wakefield, 



XVlll 



CHRONOLOGY OF IRVING' S LIFE 



18. 
19. 
20. 



21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 

30. 



Descriptions in The Deserted Village. 

Goldsmith's Humor and living's Humor. 

Griffiths' Defence. (Imagine Griffiths defending himself 

against the charges that Irving and others bring against 

him.) 
Why is Irving called " The American Goldsmith " ? 
Goldsmith's Two Trijos to the Continent — A Contrast. 
Goldsmith the Musician. 
Goldsmith the Friend of Children. 
Was Goldsmith Vain? 
Goldsmith's Improvidence. 

" The child is father of the man" applied to Goldsmith. 
The Literary Club. 
E:ffect of Novels and Romances on the Youthful Mind. 

(See Chapter X.) 
Contradictions in Goldsmith's Character. 



CHRONOLOGY OF IRVING'S LIFE 



Born April 3 

Entered a law office . 

Wrote for The Chronicle 

Went to Europe 

Admitted to the bar . 

Published Salmagundi 

Published Knickerbocker History of Neiu 

Formed a partnership with his brothers 

Was made Colonel on Governor's Staff 

Made second visit to Europe 

Went into bankruptcy 

Published The Sketch Book 

Published Bracehridge Hall 

Published Tales of a Traveller 

Resided in Spain 

Published Life of Columbus 

Published Conquest of Granada 



York 



. 1783 
. 1799 
. 1802 
. 1804 
. 1806 

1806-1807 
. 1809 
. 1810 
. 1814 
. 1815 
. 1818 

1819-1820 
. 1822 
. 1824 

1826-1829 
. 1828 

^ . 1829 



CHRONOLOGY OF GOLDSMITH'S LIFE 



XIX 



Published The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus 

Received King's Medal from the Royal Academy 

Received Degree D.C.L. from Oxford 

Published The Alhamhra . 

Returned home . . . 

Purchased Sunnyside 

Published The Crayon Miscellany 

Published Astoria 

Published The A dventures of Captain 

Was Minister to Spain 

Published Life of Goldsmith ^ . 

Published Mahomet and his Successors 

Published Wolfert's Roost . 

Published The Life of Washington 

Died 



Bonneville 



1831 

1830 

. 1830 

. 1832 

. 1832 

. 1835 

. 1835 

. 1836 

. 1837 

1842-1846 

. 1849 

1849-1850 

. 1855 

1859 

1859 



1855- 



CHRONOLOGY OF GOLDSMITH'S LIFE 



ear 



Born Nov. 10 

Entered Trinity College, Dublin, June 11 
Was graduated Feb. 27 ... . 
Went to Edinburgh to study medicine 
Went to the Continent to study medicine 
Returned to England .... 

Published Inquiry into the Present State of Polite L 

in Europe . . . . 
Published The Traveller . » . . . 
Published The Vicar of Wakefield 
Completed The Good-natured Man . 
Was made Professor of History in Royal Academy 
Published The Deserted Village .... 
Completed She Stoops to Conquer 
Died April 4 



ming 



1728 
1744 
1749 
1752 
1754 
1756 

1759 
1764 
1766 
1767 
1769 
1770 
1772 
1774 



XX BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 



BOOKS FOR ref.ere;nce 

. • , ,, --- . 

For the study of living's life the student must go, of course, 
to the authorized biography, Life and Letters of Washington 
Lrving, by Pierre M. Irving, in three volumes, published by 
Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. He will find a briefer, and per- 
haps, therefore, more serviceable, biography in the American 
Men of Letters Series, by Charles Dudley Warner. Thackeray 
has written briefly of him in his Round-about Papers, and Curtis 
in his Literary and Social Essays. 

Those who would go farther into the life of Goldsmith will 
consult Dobson's Life of Goldsmith, in the Great Writers 
Series ; William Black's Goldsmith, in the English Men of 
Letters Series ; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith ; 
and Prior's Life of Oliver Goldsmith. Boswell's Life of Samuel 
Johnson is full of information concerning Goldsmith and his 
contemporaries. 



LIFE OF GOLDSMITH 



PREFACE 



In the course of a revised edition of my works I have come 
to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years 
since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection 
from ffis writings ; and, though the facts contained in it were 
collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them 5 
to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who had collected 
and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history 
with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity ; but had ren- 
dered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid 
with details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the 10 
general reader. 

When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, 
preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands, 
recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner 
Temple, who, likewise availing himself of the labors of the inde- 15 
fatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has pro- 
duced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a feeling, 
a grace, and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be desired. 
Indeed it would have been presumption in me to undertake the 
subject after it had been thus felicitously treated, did I not 20 
stand committed by my previous sketch. That sketch now 
appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public demand; 
yet it had to take its place in the revised series of my works 
unless something more satisfactory could be substituted. Under 
these circumstances I have again taken up the subject, and gone 25 
into it with more fulness than formerly, omitting none of the 
facts which I considered illustrative of the life and character of 
the poet, and giving them in as graphic a style as I could com- 
mand. Still the hurried manner in which I have had to do this 
amidst the pressure of other claims on my attention, and with 30 

3 



4 PREFACE 

the press dogging at my heels, has prevented me from giving 
some parts of the subject the thorough handling I could have 
wished. Those who would like to see it treated still more at 
large, with the addition of critical disquisitions and the advan- 
5 tage of collateral facts, would do well to refer themselves to Mr. 
Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to the elegant and discursive 
pages of Mr. Forster. 

For my own part, I can only regret my shortcomings in what 
to me is a labor of love; for it is a tribute of gratitude to the 
10 memory of an author whose writings were the delight of my 
childhood, and have been a source of enjoyment to me through- 
out life ; and to whom, of all others, I may address the beauti- 
ful apostrophe of Dante to Virgil : — 

15 Tu se' lo naio maestro°, e '1 mio autore : 

Tu se' solo colui, da cu' lo tolsi 
Lo bello stile, che m' ha f atto onore. 

W.I. 

SUNNYSIDE, Aug. 1, 184:9. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER I 

Birth an«[ Parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmitli Race. — Poetical 
Birthplace. — Goblin House. — Scenes of Boyhood. — Lissoy. — Pictui'e 
of a Country Parson. — Goldsmith's Schoolmistress. — Byrne, the 
Village Schoolmaster. — Goldsmith's Hornpipe and Epigram. — Uncle 
Contarine. — School Studies and School Sports. — Mistakes of a Night. 

There are few writers for whom the reader feels such per- 
sonal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so emi- 
nently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with 
their writings. We read his character in every page, and grow 
into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevo- 5 
lence that beams throughout his works ; the whimsical, yet 
airiiable views of human life and human nature; the unforced 
humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, 
and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melanclioly; 
even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly- 10 
tinted style, — all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intel- 
lectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time 
that we admire the author. While the productions of writers 
of loftier pretension and more sounding names are suffered to 
moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished and 15 
laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them with ostentation, 
but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and har- 
monize our thoughts ; they put us in good-humor with ourselves 
and with the, world, and in so doing tliey make us happier and 
better men. 20 

An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith 
lets us into the secret of his gifted pages, We there discover 

5 



6 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

them to be little more than transcripts of his own heart and. 
picturings of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same 
kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, intel- 
ligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an adven- 
5 ture or character is given in his works that may not be traced 
to his own parti-colored story. Many of his most ludicrous 
scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from his own 
blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have been buf- 
feted into almost every maxim imparted by him for the instruc- 

10 tion of his reader. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728, 
at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in 
Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a 
thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and 

15 incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from gen- 
eration to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. 
"They were always," according to their own accounts, " a strange 
family ; they rarely acted like other peo23le ; their hearts were 
in the right place, but their heads seemed to be doing anything 

20 but what they ought." — " They were remarkable," says another 
statement, " for their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways 
of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to 
inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his race. 

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary 

25 improvidence, married when very young and very poor, and 
starved along for several years on a small country curacy ° and 
the assistance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked 
out by the produce of some fields which he farmed, and of some 
occasional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the rector of an 

30 adjoining parish, did not exceed forty pounds. 

*' And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that stood on a rising 
ground in a rough, lonely part of the country, overlooking a low 
tract occasionally flooded by the river Inny. In this house Gold- 
35 smith was born, and it was a birthplace worthy of a poet ; for, by 
all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition handed down 
among the neighboring peasantry states that, in after-years, the 



CHAPTER I 7 

house, remaining for some time untenanted, went to decay, tlie 
root" fell in, and it became so lonely and forlorn as to "be a resort 
for the " good people " or fairies, who in Ireland are supposed to 
delight in old, crazy, deserted mansions for their midnight revels. 
All attempts to repair it were in vain ; the fairies battled stoutly 5 
to maintain possession. A huge misshapen hobgoblin used to 
bestride the house every evening with an immense pair of jack- 
boots, which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would thrust 
through the roof, kicking to pieces all the work of the preced- 
ing day. The house was therefore left to its fate, and went to 10 
ruin. 

Suclj is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. 
About two years after his birth a change came over the circum- 
stances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he suc- 
ceeded to the rectory ° of Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning the 15 
old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy,° in the county of 
Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated 
on the skirts of that pretty little village. 

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world 
whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, 20 
whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, 
and which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the heart. 
Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his "Auburn" 
in the Deserted Village; his father's establishment, a mixture 
of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for the rural 25 
economy of the Vicar of Wakefield; and his father himself, 
with his learned simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable 
piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely 
portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause for a 
moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings one or two of 30 
those pictures which, under feigned names, represent his father 
.and his family, and the happy fireside of his childish days. 

" My father," says the " Man in Black," ° who, in some respects, 
is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, — " my father, the 
younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living 35 
in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his 
generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had 
his flatterers poorer than himself : for every dinner he gave 
them, they returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this was 



8 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

all he wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at 
the head of his army, influenced my father at the head of his 
table ; he told the story of the ivy- tree, and that was laughed 
at; he repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of 

5 breeches, and the company laughed at that ; but the story of 
Taffy in the sedan-chair was sure to set the table in a roar. 
Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he 
gave ; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved 
him. 

10 '' As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent 
of it : he had' no intention of leaving his children money, for 
that was dross ; he resolved they should have learning, for 
learning, he used to observe, was better than silver or gold. 
For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself, and took 

15 as much care to form our morals as to improve our understand- 
ing. AVe were told that universal benevolence was what first 
cemented society : we were taught to consider all the wants of 
mankind as our own ; to regard the human face divine with 
affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be mere machines of 

20 pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the slightest 
impulse made either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, 
we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thou- 
sands before we were taught the necessary qualifications of get- 
ting a farthing." 

25 In the Deserted Village we have another picture of his 
father and his father's fireside : — 



'* His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 
The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 

30 Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast ; 

The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd; 
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away ; 

35 Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 

Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

40 His pity gave ere charity began." 



CHAPTER 1 ^ 9 

The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and 
three daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the good man's pride 
and hope, and he tasked his slender means to the utmost in 
educating him for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver 
was the second son, and seven years younger than Henry, who 5 
w^s the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom 
he was most tenderly attached throughout life. 

Oliver's education began when he was about three years old ; 
that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one of those 
good old motherly dames, found in every village, who cluck to- 10 
gether the whole callow brood of the neighborhood, to teach 
them ^eir letters and keep them out of harm's way. Mistress 
Elizabeth Delap, for that was her name, flourished in this 
capacity for upward of fifty years, and it was the pride and 
boast of her declining days, when nearly ninety years of age, 15 
that she was the first that had put a book (doubtless a horn- 
book°) into Goldsmith's hands. Apparently he did not much 
profit by it, for she confessed he was one of the dullest boys she 
had ever dealt with, insomuch that she had sometimes doubted 
whether it was possible to make anything of him : a common 20 
case with imaginative children, who are apt to be beguiled from 
the dry abstractions of elementary study by the picturings of the 
fancy. 

At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village 
schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and irrev-25 
erently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet. He 
had been educated for a pedagogue, but had enlisted in the 
army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time,° 
and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. 
At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, 30 
he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy. 
Goldsmith is supposed to have had him and his school in view 
in the following sketch in his Deserted Village : — 

" Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way 
With blossom 'd iurze unprofitably gay, 35 

There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew : 



10 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 

The day's disasters in his morning face ; 

Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee 

At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
5 Full well the busy whisper circling round, 

Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd : 

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 

The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 

The village all declared how much he knew, 
10 'T was certain he could write, and cipher too ; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage ; 

And e'en the story ran that he could gauge : 

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 

For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still, 
15 While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around — 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 

That one small head could carry all he knew." 

There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, 

20 not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of 
his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought 
with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories, of 
which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal fortli 
to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching 

25 them their lessons. These traveller's tales had a powerful effect 
upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an 
unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking adventure. 

Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly 
superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions 

30 which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to 
believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as 
great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for- 
nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, extended 
to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the whole 

35 race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Everything, in short, that 
savored of romance, fable, and adventure, was congenial to his 
poetic mind, and took instant root there ; but the slow plants 
of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if not choked, by 
the weeds of his quick imagination. 

40 Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposi- 
tion to dabble in poetry, and this likewise was caught by his 



CHAPTER I 11 

pupil. Before he was eight years old, Goldsmith had contracted 
a habit of scribbling verses on small scraps of paper, which, in 
a little while, he would throw into the fire. A few of these 
sibylline leaves,° however, were rescued from the flames and 
conveyed to his mother. The good woman read them with a 5 
mother's delight, and saw at once that her son was a genius and 
a poet. From that time she beset her husband with solicita- 
tions to give the boy an education suitable to his talents. The 
worthy man was already straitened by the costs of instruction 
of his eldest son Henry, and had intended to bring his second 10 
son up to a trade ; but the mother would listen to no such 
thing ; as usual, her influence prevailed, and Oliver, instead of 
being instructed in some humble, but cheerful and gainful 
handicraft, was devoted to poverty and the Muse. 

A severe attack of the small-pox caused him to be taken 15 
from under the care of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne. His 
malady had nearly proved fatal, and his face remained pitted 
through life. On his recovery he was placed under the charge 
of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in Boscommon, 
and became an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Gold- 20 
smith, Esq., of Ballyoughter, in that vicinity. He now entered 
upon studies of a higher order, but without making any un- 
common progress. Still a careless, easy facility of disposition, 
an amusing eccentricity of manners, and a vein of quiet and 
peculiar humor, rendered him a general favorite, and a trifling 25 
incident soon induced his uncle's family to concur in his 
mother's opinion of his genius. 

A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to 
dance. One of the company, named Cummings, played on the 
violin. In the course of the evening Oliver undertook a horn- 30 
pipe. His short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted and 
discolored with the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous figure 
in the eyes of the musician, who made merry at his expense, 
dubbing him his little ^sop. Goldsmith was nettled by the 
jest, and stopping short in the hornpipe, exclaimed, — 35 

" Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
See jEsop dancing, and his monkey playing." 

The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years 



12 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

old, and Oliver became forthwith the wit and the bright genius 
of the family. It was thought a pity he should not receive the 
same advantages with his elder brother Henry, who had been 
sent to the University; and, as his father's circumstances would 
5 not afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by the repre- 
sentations of his mother, agreed to contribute towards the ex- 
pense. The -greater part, however, was borne by his uncle, the 
Eev. Thomas Contarine. This worthy man had been the 
college companion of Bishop Berkeley,"^ and was possessed of 

10 moderate means, holding the living of Carrick-on-Shannon. 
He had married the sister of Goldsmith's father, but was now a 
widower, with an only child, a daughter, named Jane. Con- 
tarine was a kind-hearted man, with a generosity beyond his 
means. He took Goldsmith into favor from his infancy ;^ his 

15 house was open to him during the holidays ; his daughter 
Jane, two years older than the poet, was his early playmate ; 
and uncle Contarine continued to the last one of his most active, 
unwavering, and generous friends. 

Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative, 

20 Oliver was now transferred to schools of a higher order, to 
prepare him for the University ; first to one at Athlone, kept 
by the Rev. Mr. Campbell, and, at the end of two years, to one 
at Edgeworthstown, under the superintendence of the Rev. 
Patrick Hughes. 

25 Even at these schools his proficiency does not appear to have 
been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, rather 
than dull, and, on the whole, appears to have been well thought 
of by his teachers. In his studies he inclined towards the 
Latin poets and historians; relished Ovid and Horace, and de- 

30 lighted in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in reading 
and translating Tacitus, and was brought to pay attention to 
style in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, 
to whom he had written brief and confused letters, and who 
told him in reply, that, if he had but little to say, to endeavor 

35 to say that little well. 

The career of his brother Henry at the University was enough 
to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed to be realizing all 
his father's hopes, and was winning collegiate honors that the 
good man considered indicative of his future 'success in life. 



CHAPTER I 13 

In the meanwhile, Oliver, if not distinguished among his 
teachers, was popular among his schoolmates. He had a 
thoughtless generosity extremely captivating to young hearts : 
his temper was quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but 
his anger was momentary, and it was impossible for him to 5 
harbor resentment. He was the leader of all boyish sports and 
athletic amusements, especially ball-playing, and he was fore- 
most in all mischievous pranks. Many years afterward, an old 
man. Jack Fitzsimmons, one of the directors of the sports, and 
keeper of the ball-court at Ballymahon, used to boast of having 10 
been schoolmate of " Noll Goldsmith," as he called him, and 
would dwell with vainglory on one of their exploits, in robbing 
the orchard of Tirlicken, an old family residence of Lord An- 
naly. The exploit, however, had nearly involved disastrous 
consequences ; for the crew of juvenile depredators were cap- 15 
tured like Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues'^; and 
nothing but the respectability of Goldsmith's connections saved 
him from the punishment that would have awaited more ple- 
beian delinquents. 

An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's last 20 
journey homeward from Edgeworthstown. His father's house 
was about twenty miles distant ; the road lay through a rough 
country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith procured a horse 
for the journey, and a friend furnished him with a guinea for 
travelling expenses. He was but a stripling of sixteen, and being 25 
thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with money in his 
pocket, it is no wonder that his head was turned. He deter- 
mined to play the man, and to spend his money in independent 
traveller's style. Accordingly, instead of pushing directly for 
home, he halted for the night at the little town of Ardagh, 30 
and, accosting the first person he met, inquired, with some- 
what of a consequential air, for the best house in the place. 
Unluckily, the person he had accosted was one Kelly, a notorious 
wag, who was quartered in the family of one Mr. Featherstone, 
a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the self-consequence 35 
of the stripling, and willing to play oif a practical joke at 
his expense, he directed him to what was literally " the best 
house in the place," namely, the family mansion of Mr. Feather- 
stone. Goldsmith accordingly rode up to what he supposed 



14 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

to be an inn, ordered his horse to be taken to the stable, 
walked into the parlor, seated himself by the fire, and de- 
manded what he could have for supper. On ordinary occa- 
sions he was diffident and even awkward in his manners, 
5 but here he was " at ease in his inn," and felt called upon 
to show his manhood and enact the experienced traveller. His 
person was by no means calculated to play off his pretensions, 
for he was short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an air 
and carriage by no means of a distinguished cast. The owner 

10 of the house, however, soon discovered his whimsical mistake, 
and, being a man of humor, determined to indulge it, especially 
as he accidentally learned that this intruding guest was the son 
of an old acquaintance. 

Accordingly, Goldsmith was " fooled to the top of his bent," 

15 and permitted to have full sway throughout the evening. I^ever 
was schoolboy more elated. When supper was served, he most 
condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife, and daugh- 
ter should partake, and ordered a bottle of wine to crown 
the repast and benefit the house. His last flourish was on 

20 going to bed, when he gave especial orders to have a hot cake 
at breakfast. His confusion and dismay, on discovering the 
next morning that he had been swaggering in this free and 
easy way in the house of a private gentleman, may be readily 
conceived. True to his habit of turning the events of his life 

25 to literary account, we find this chapter of ludicrous blunders 
and cross-purposes dramatized many years afterward in his 
admirable comedy of She Stoops to Conquer or The Mistakes of 
a Night. 



CHAPTER n 



Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family. — Goldsmith at the 
University. — Situation of a Sizer. — Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor. 
— Pecuniary Straits. — Street-Ballads. — College Eiot. — Gallows 
Walsh. — College Prize. — A Dance interrupted. 

While Oliver was making his way somewhat negligently 

30 through the schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his 

father's heart by his career at the University. He soon dis- 



CHAPTER II 15 

tinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholar- 
ship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a 
stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which 
leads to advancement in the University should the individual 
choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would 5 
push forward for that comfortable provision, a fellowship, and 
thence to higher dignities and emoluments. Henry, however, 
had the improvidence or the." unworldliness " of his race : 
returning to the country during the succeeding vacation, he 
married for love, relinquished, of course, all his collegiate pros- 10 
pects and advantages, set up a school in his father's neigh- 
borhooji, and buried his talents and acquirements for the 
remainder of his life in a curacy of forty pounds a year. 

Another matrimonial event occurred not long afterward in the 
Goldsmith family, to disturb the equanimity of its worthy 15 
head. This was the clandestine marriage of his daughter 
Catherine with a young gentleman of the name of Hodson, who 
had been confided to the care of her brother Henry to complete 
his studies. As the youth was of wealthy parentage, it was 
thought a lucky match for the Goldsmith family ; but the 20 
tidings of the event stung the- bride's father to the soul. 
Proud of his integrity, and jealous of that good name which 
was his chief possession, he saw himself and his family sub- 
jected to the degrading suspicion of having abused a trust 
reposed in them to promote a mercenary match. In the first 25 
transports of his feelings, he is said to have uttered a wish that 
his daughter might never have a child to bring like shame and 
sorrow on her head. The hasty wish, so contrary to the usual 
benignity of the man, was recalled and repented of almost as 
soon as uttered ; but it was considered baleful in its effects by 30 
the susperstitious neighborhood ; for, though his daughter bore 
three children, they all died before her. 

A more effectual measure was taken by Mr. Goldsmith to 
ward off the apprehended imputation, but one which imposed a 
heavy burden on his family. This was to furnish a marriage 35 
portion of four hundred pounds, that his daughter might not 
be said to have entered her husband's family empty-handed. 
To raise the sum in cash was impossible; but he assigned, to 
Mr. Hodson his little farm and the income of his tithes until 



16 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the marriage portion should be paid. In the mean time, as his 
living did not amount to £200 per annum, he had to practise 
the strictest economy to pay off gradually this heavy tax 
incurred by his nice sense of honor. 
5 The first of his family to feel the effects of this economy was 
Oliver. The time had now arrived for him to be sent to the 
University; and, accordingly, on the 11th June, 1745,° when 
seventeen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin ; but 
his father was no longer able to place him there as a pensioner," 

10 as he had done his eldest son Henry ; he was obliged, therefore, to 
enter him as a sizer, or " poor scholar." He was lodged in one of 
the top rooms adjoining the library of the building, numbered 
35, where it is said his name may still be seen, scratched by 
himself upon a window-frame.° 

15 A student of this class is taught and boarded gratuitously, 
and has to pay but a small sum for his room. It is expected, in 
return for these advantages, that he will be a diligent student, 
and render himself useful in a variety of ways. In Trinity 
College, at the time of Goldsmith's admission, several deroga- 

20 tory, and, indeed, menial offices were exacted from the sizer, as 
if the college sought to indemnify itself for conferring benefits 
by inflicting indignities. He was obliged to sweep part of the 
courts in the morning; to carry up the dishes from the kitchen 
to the fellows' table, and to wait in the hall until that body had 

25 dined. His very dress marked the inferiority of the " poor stu- 
dent " to his happier classmates. It was a black gown of coarse 
stuff without sleeves, and a plain black cloth cap without a tas- 
sel. We can conceive nothing more odious and ill-judged than 
these distinctions, which attached the idea of degradation to 

30 poverty, and placed the indigent youth of merit below the 

worthless minion of fortune. They were calculated to wound 

and irritate the noble mind, and to render the base mind baser. 

Indeed, the galling effect of these servile tasks upon youths of 

proud spirits and quick sensibilities became at length too noto- 

35 rious to be disregarded. About fifty years since, on a Trinity 
Sunday, a number of persons were assembled to witness the col- 
lege ceremonies ; and as a sizer was carrying up a dish of meat 
to the fellows' table, a burly citizen in the crowd made some 
sneering observation on the servility of his office. Stung to the 



CHAPTER II 17 

quick, the high-spirited youth instantly flung the dish and its 
contents at the head of the sneerer. The sizer was sharply 
reprimanded for this outbreak of wounded pride, but the de- 
grading task was from that day forward very properly consigned 
to menial hands. 5 

It was with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered 
college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was 
affected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among his 
gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, moody 
and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifications 10 
induced him, in after-years, most strongly to dissuade his 
brothei»- Henry, the clergyman, from sending a son to college on 
alike footing. "If he has ambition, strong passions, and an 
exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless 
you have no other trade for him except your own." 15 

To add to his annoyances, the fellow of the college who had 
the peculiar control of his studies, the Rev. Theaker Wilder, 
was a man of violent and capricious temper, and of diametrically 
opposite tastes. The tutor was devoted to the exact sciences; 
Goldsmith was for the classics. Wilder endeavored to force his 20 
favorite studies upon the student by harsh means, suggested by 
his own coarse and savage nature. He abused him in presence 
of the class as ignorant and stupid ; ridiculed him as awkward 
and ugly, and at times in the transports of his temper indulged 
in personal violence. The effect was to aggravate a passive dis- 25 
taste into a positive aversion. Goldsmith was loud in express- 
ing his contempt for mathematics and his dislike of ethics and 
logic ; and the prejudices thus imbibed continued through life. 
Mathematics he always pronounced a science to which the 
meanest intellects were competent. 30 

A truer cause of this distaste for the severer studies may 
probably be found in his natural indolence and his love of con- 
vivial pleasures. " I was a lover of mirth, good-humor, and even 
sometimes of fun," said he, "from my childhood." He sang a 
good song, was a boon companion, and could not resist any 35 
temptation to social enjoyment. He endeavored to persuade 
himself that learning and dulness went hand in hand, and that 
genius was not to be put in harness. Even in riper years, when 
the consciousness of his own deficiencies ought to have con- 



18 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

vinced him of the importance of early study, he speaks slight- 
ingly of college honors. 

" A lad," says he,° " whose passions are not strong enough in 
youth to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, 
5 and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or live years' 
perseverance will probably obtain every advantage and honor 
his college can bestow. I would compare the man whose youth 
has been thus passed in tranquillity of dispassionate prudence, 
to liquors that never ferment, and, consequently, continue 

10 always muddy." 

The death of his worthy father, which took place early in 
1747, rendered Goldsmith's situation at college extremely irk- 
some. His mother was left with little more than the means of 
providing for the wants of her household, and was unable to 

15 furnish him any remittances. He would have been compelled, 
therefore, to leave college, had it not been for the occasional 
contributions of friends, the foremost among whom was his 
generous and warm-hearted uncle Contarine. Still these sup- 
plies were so scanty and precarious, that in the intervals be- 

20 1 ween them he was put to great straits. He had two college 
associates from whom he would occasionally borrow small sums ; 
one was an early schoolmate, by the name of Beatty ; the other 
a cousin, and the chosen companion of his frolics, Ivobert (or 
rather Bob) Bryanton, of Ballymulvey House near Ballymahon. 

25 When these casual supplies failed him, he was more than once 
obliged to raise funds for his immediate wants by pawning his 
books. At times he sank into despondency, but he had what 
he termed " a knack at hoping," which soon buoyed him up 
again. He began now to resort to his poetical vein as a source 

30 of profit, scribbling street-ballads, which he privately sold for 
five shillings each at a shop which dealt in such small wares of 
literature. He felt an author's affection for these unowned 
bantlings, and we are told would stroll privately through the 
streets at night to hear them sung, listening to the comments 

35 and criticisms of by-standers, and observing the degree of ap- 
plause which each received. 

Edmund Burke° was a fellow-student with Goldsmith at the 
college. Neither the statesman, nor the poet gave promise 
of their future celebrity, though Burke certainly surpassed his 



CHAPTER II 19 

contemporary in industry and application, and evinced more 
disposition for self-improvement, associating himself with a 
number of his fellow-students in a debating club, in which they 
discussed literary topics, and exercised themselves in composition. 

Goldsmith may likewise have belonged to this association, 5 
but his propensity was rather to mingle with the gay and 
thoughtless. On one occasion we find him implicated in an 
affair that came nigh producing his expulsion. A report was 
brought to college that a scholar was in the hands of the 
bailiffs. This was an insult in which every gownsman felt 10 
himself involved. A number of the scholars flew to arms, and 
sallied forth to battle, headed by a hair-brained fellow nick- 
named " Gallows" Walsh, noted for his aptness at mischief and 
fondness for riot. The stronghold of the bailiff was carried by 
storm, the scholar set at liberty, and the delinquent catch-pole° 15 
borne off captive to the college, where, having no pump to put 
him under, they satisfied the demands of collegiate law by duck- 
ing him in an old cistern. 

Flushed with this signal victory. Gallows Walsh now ha- 
rangued his followers, and proposed to break open Newgate, or 20 
the Black Dog, as the prison was called, and effect a general 
jail-delivery. He was answered by shouts of concurrence, and 
away went the throng of madcap youngsters, fully bent upon 
putting an end to the tyranny of law. They were joined by 
the mob of the city, and made an attack upon the prison with 25 
true Irish precipitation and thoughtlessness, never having pro- 
vided themselves with cannon to batter its stone walls. A few 
shots from the prison brought them to their senses, and they 
beat a hasty retreat, two of the townsmen being killed, and 
several wounded. 30 

A severe scrutiny of this affair took place at the University. 
Four students, who had been ringleaders, were expelled ; four 
others, who had been prominent in the affray, were publicly ad- 
monished ; among the latter was the unlucky Goldsmith. 

To make up for this disgrace, he gained, within a month 35 
afterward, one of the minor prizes of the college. It is true it 
was one of the very smallest, amounting in pecuniary value to 
but thirty shillings, but it was the first distinction he had 
gained in his whole collegiate career. This turn of success and 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head of our 
poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and dance at his 
chamber to a number of young persons of both sexes from the 
city, in direct violation of college rules. The unwonted sound 
5 of the fiddle reached the ears of the implacable Wilder. He 
rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted corporal 
punishment on the " father of the feast," and turned his aston- 
ished guests neck and heels out-of-doors. 

This filled the measure of poor Goldsmith's humiliations ; he 

10 felt degraded both within college and without. He dreaded 
the ridicule of his fellow-students for the ludicrous termination 
of his orgie, and he was ashamed to meet his city acquaint- 
ances after the degrading chastisement received in their pres- 
ence, and after their own ignominious expulsion. Above all, he 

15 felt it impossible to submit any longer to the insulting tyranny 
of Wilder : he determined, therefore, to leave, not merely the 
college, but also his native land, and to bury what he conceived 
to be his irretrievable disgrace in some distant country. He ac- 
cordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied forth from the 

20 college walls the very next day, intending to embark at Cork for 
— he scarce knew where — America, or any other part beyond 
sea. With his usual heedless imprudence, however, he loitered 
about Dublin until his finances were reduced to a shilling ; with 
this amount of specie he set out on his journey. 

25 For three whole days he subsisted on his shilling ; when that 
was spent, he parted with some of the clothes from his back, 
until, reduced almost to nakedness, he was four-and- twenty 
hours without food, insomuch that he declared a handful of 
gray peas, given to him by a girl at a wake, was one of the 

30 most delicious repasts he had ever tasted. Hunger, fatigue, and 
destitution brought down his spirit and calmed his anger. Fain 
would he have retraced his steps, could he have done so with 
any salvo for the lingerings of his pride. In his extremity he 
conveyed to his brother Henry information of his distress, and 

35 of the rash project on which he had set out. His affectionate 
brother hastened to his relief ; furnished him with money and 
clothes; soothed his feelings with gentle counsel; prevailed 
upon him to return to college, and effected an indifferent recon- 
ciliation between him and Wilder. 



CHAPTER II 21 

After this irregular sally upon life he remained nearly two 
years longer at the University, giving proofs of talent in occa- 
sional translations from the classics, for one of which he received 
a premium, awarded only to those who are the first in literary 
merit. Still he never made much figure at college, his nat- 5 
ural disinclination to study being increased by the harsh treat- 
ment he continued to experience from his tutor. 

Among the anecdotes told of him while at college is one in- 
dicative of that prompt but thoughtless and often whimsical 
benevolence which throughout life formed one of the most ec- 10 
centric, yet endearing points of his character. He was engaged 
to brea4tfast one day with a college intimate, but failed to make 
his appearance. His friend repaired to his room, knocked at 
the door, and was bidden to enter. To his surprise, he found 
Goldsmith in his bed, immersed to his chin in feathers. A 15 
serio-comic story explained the circumstance. In the course of 
the preceding evening's stroll he had met with a woman with 
five children, who implored his charity. Her husband was in 
the hospital; she was just from the country, a stranger, and 
destitute, without food or shelter for her helpless offspring. 20 
This was too much for the kind heart of Goldsmith. He was 
almost as poor as herself, it is true, and had no money in his 
pocket; but he brought her to the college-gate, gave her the 
blankets from his bed to cover her little brood, and part of his 
clothes for her to sell and purchase food ; and, finding himself 25 
cold during the night, had cut open his bed and buried himself 
among the feathers. 

At length, on the 27th of Febraary, 1749, O. S.,° he was ad- 
mitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and took his final 
leave of the University. He was freed from college rule, that 30 
emancipation so ardently coveted by the thoughtless student, 
and which too generally launches him amid the cares, the hard- 
ships, and vicissitudes of life. He was freed, too, from the bru- 
tal tyranny of Wilder. If his kind and placable nature could 
retain any resentment for past injuries, it might have been 35 
gratified by learning subsequently that the passionate career of 
Wilder was terminated by a violent death in the course of a 
dissolute brawl ; but Goldsmith took no delight in the misfor- 
tunes even of his enemies. 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

He now returned to his friends, no longer the student to 
sport away the happy interval of vacation, but the anxious man, 
who is henceforth to shift for himself and make his way through 
the world. In fact, he had no legitimate home to return to. 
5 At the death of his father, the paternal house at Lissoy, in 
which Goldsmith had passed his childhood, had been taken by 
Mr. Hodson, who had married his sister Catherine. His mother 
had removed to Ballymahon, where she occupied a small house, 
and had to practise the severest frugality. His elder brother 

10 Henry served the curacy and taught the school of his late 
father's parish, and lived in narrow circumstances at Gold- 
smith's birthplace, the old goblin -house at Pallas. 

None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid him with 
anything more than a temjDorary home, and the aspect of every 

15 one seemed somewhat changed. In fact, his career at college 
had disappointed his friends, and they began to doubt his being 
the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically alludes 
to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, The Man 
in Black, in the Citizen of the World. 

20 " The first opportunity my father had of finding his expecta- 
tions disappointed was in the middling figure I made at the 
University : he had flattered himself that he should soon see 
me rising into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but 
was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. 

25 His disappointment might have been partly ascribed to his 
having overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of math- 
ematical reasonings at a time when my imagination and mem- 
ory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new objects than 
desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This, however, did 

30 not please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little 
dull, but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be very 
good-natured, and had no harm in me." ^ 

The only one of his relatives who did not appear to lose faith 
in him was his uncle Contarine. This kind and considerate 

35 man, it is said, saw in him a warmth of heart requiring some 
skill to direct, and a latent genius that wanted time to mature ; 
and these impressions none of his subsequent follies and irregu- 

1 Citizen of the World, letter xxvii. 



CHAPTER II 23 

larities wholly obliterated. His purse and affection, therefore, 
as well as his house, were now open to him, and he became his 
chief counsellor and director after his father's death. He urged 
him to prepare for holy orders ; and others of his relatives con- 
curred in the advice. Goldsmith had a settled repugnance to a 5 
clerical life. This has been ascribed by some to conscientious 
scruples, not considering himself of a temper and frame of mind 
for such a sacred office ; others attributed it to his roving pro- 
pensities, and his desire to visit foreign countries ; he himself 
gives a whimsical objection in his biography of The Man in 10 
Black: — "To be obliged to wear a long wig when I liked a 
short oiie, or a black coat when I generally dressed in brown, I 
thought such a restraint upon my liberty that I absolutely re- 
jected the proposal." 

In effect, however, his scruples were overruled, and he agreed 15 
to qualify himself for the office. He was now only twenty-one, 
and must pass two years of probation. They were two years 
of rather loitering, unsettled life. Sometimes he was at Lissoy, 
participating with thoughtless enjoyment in the rural sports 
and occupations of his brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson ; sometimes 20 
he was with his brother Henry, at the old goblin mansion at 
Pallas, assisting him occasionally in his school. The early 
marriage and unambitious retirement of Henry, though so sub- 
versive of the fond plans of his father, had proved happy in 
their results. He was already surrounded by a blooming f am- 25 
ily ; he was contented with his lot, beloved by his parishioners, 
and lived in the daily practice of all the amiable virtues, and 
the immediate enjoyment of their reward. Of the tender affec- 
tion inspired in the breast of Goldsmith by the constant kind- 
ness of this excellent brother, and of the longing recollection 30 
with which, in the lonely wanderings of after-years, he looked 
back upon this scene of domestic felicity, we have a touch- 
ing instance in the well-known opening to his poem of The 
Traveller : — 

" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, 35 

Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po ; 

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 



24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; 
Still to my hrother turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

*' Eternal hlessings crown my earliest friend, 
5 And round his dwelling guardian saints attend; 

Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 

To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire; 

Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, 

And every stranger finds a ready chair : 
10 Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd 

Where all the ruddy family around 

Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 

Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale : 

Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
15 And learn the luxury of doing good." 

During this loitering life Goldsmith pursued no study, but 
rather amused himself with miscellaneous reading; such as 
biography, travels, poetry, novels, plays — everything, in short, 
that administered to the imagination. Sometimes he strolled 

20 along the banks of the river Inny ; where, in after-years, when 
he had become famous, his favorite seats and haunts used to be 
pointed out. Often he joined in the rustic sports of the vil- 
lagers, and became adroit at throwing the sledge, a favorite 
feat of activity and strength in Ireland. Recollections of these 

25 " healthful sports " we find in his Deserted Village : — 

" How often have I bless'd the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree : 
30 And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground. 

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round." 

A boon companion in all his rural amusements was his cousin 
and college crony, Robert Bryanton, with whom he sojourned 
occasionally at Ballymulvey House in the neighborhood. They 
35 used to make excursions about the country on foot, sometimes 
fishing, sometimes hunting otter in the limy. They got up a 
country club at the little inn of Ballymahon, of which Gold- 
smith soon became the oracle and prime wit; astonishing his 
unlettered associates by his learning, and being considered cap- 



CHAPTER II 25 

ital at a song and a story. From the rustic conviviality of the 
inn at Ballymahon, and the company which used to assemble 
there, it is surmised that he took some hints in after-life for his 
picturing of Tony Lumpkin and his associates^ : "Dick Mug- 
gins, the exciseman; Jack Slang, the horse-doctor; little Amin-5 
idab, that grinds the music-box, and Tom Twist, that spins 
the pewter platter." Nay, it is thought that Tony's drinking- 
song at the " Three Jolly Pigeons " ° was but a revival of one of 
the convivial catches at Ballymahon : — 

" Then come put the jorum about, 10 

And let us be merry and clever, 
-Our hearts and our liquors are stout, 

Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons forever. 
Let some cry of woodcock or hare, 

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons 15 

But of all the gay birds in the air, 
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons. 

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll." 

Notwithstanding all these accomplishments and this rural 
popularity, his friends began to shake their heads and shrug 20 
their shoulders when they spoke of him; and his brother Henry 
noted with anything but satisfaction his frequent visits to the 
club at Ballymahon. He emerged, however, unscathed from this 
dangerous ordeal, more fortunate in this respect than his com- 
rade Bryanton ; but he retained throughout life a fondness for 25 
clubs: often, too, in the course of his checkered career, he 
looked back to this period of rural sports and careless enjoy- 
ments as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy life ; and 
though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a finer 
feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after the " Three 30 
Jolly Pigeons." 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER III 

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop. — Second Sally to see the World. — 
Takes Passage for America. — Ship sails without him. — Return on 
Fiddle-back. — A hospitable Friend. — The Counsellor. 

The time had now arrived for Goldsmith to apply for orders, 
and he presented himself accordingly before the Bishop of 
Elphin for ordination. We have stated his great objection to 
clerical life, the obligation to wear a black coat ; and, whimsi- 

5 cal as it may appear, dress seems in fact to have formed an 
obstacle to his entrance into the Church. He had ever a passion 
for clothing his sturdy but awkward little person in gay colors; 
and on this solemn occasion, when it was to be supposed his garb 
would be of suitable gravity, he appeared luminously arrayed 

10 in scarlet breeches ! He was rejected by the bishoj) : some say 
for want of sufficient studious preparation; his rambles and 
frolics with Bob Bryanton, and his revels with the club at 
Ballymahon, having been much in the way of his theological 
studies ; others attribute his rejection to reports of his college 

15 irregularities, which the Bishop had received from his old tyraut 
Wilder ; but those who look into the matter with more know- 
ing eyes, pronounce the scarlet breeches to have been the fun- 
damental objection. "My friends," says Goldsmith, speaking 
through his humorous representative, the "Man in Black," — 

20 " my friends were now perfectly satisfied I was undone ; and 
yet they thought it a pity for one that had not the least harm 
in him, and was so very good-natured." His uncle Contarine, 
however, still remained unwavering in his kindness, though 
much less sanguine in his expectations. He now looked round 

25 for a humbler sphere of action, and through his influence and 
exertions Oliver was received as tutor in the family of a Mr. 
Flinn, a gentleman of the neighborhood. The situation was 
apparently respectable ; he had his seat at the table ; and joined 
the family in their domestic recreations and their evening game 

30 at cards. There was a servility, however, in his position, which 
was not to his taste ; nor did his deference for the family in- 



CHAPTER III 27 

crease upon familiar intercourse. He charged a member of it 
with unfair play at cards. A violent altercation ensued, which 
ended in his throwing up his situation as tutor. On being paid 
off he found himself in possession of an unheard-of amount 
of money. His wandering propensity and his desire to see the 5 
world were instantly in the ascendency. Without communicat- 
ing his plans or intentions to his friends, he procured a good 
horse, and, with thirty pounds in his pocket, made a second 
sally forth into the world. 

The worthy niece and housekeeper of the hero of La Mancha'^ 10 
could not have been more surprised and dismayed at one of the 
Don's clandestine expeditions than were the mother and friends 
of Gol(^mith when they heard of his mysterious departure. 
Weeks elapsed, and nothing was seen or heard of him. It was 
feared that he had left the country on one of his wandering 15 
freaks, and his poor mother was reduced almost to despair 
when one day he arrived at her door almost as forlorn in plight 
as the prodigal son. Of his thirty pounds not a shilling was 
left; and, instead of the goodly steed on which he had issued 
forth on his errantry, he was mounted on a sorry little pony, 20 
which he had nicknamed Fiddle-back. As soon as his mother 
wai^ well assured of his safety, she rated him soundly for his 
inconsiderate conduct. His brothers and sisters, who were ten- 
derly attached to him, interfered, and succeeded in mollifying 
her ire ; and whatever lurking anger the good dame might 25 
have, was no doiibt effectually vanquished by the following 
whimsical narrative which he drew uj) at his brother's house 
and dispatched to her : — 

" My dear mother,° if you will sit down and calmly listen to 
w^hat I say, you shall be fully resolved in every one of those 30 
many questions you have asked me. I went to Cork and con- 
verted my horse, which you prize so much higher than Fiddle- 
back, into cash, took my passage in a ship bound for America, 
and, at the same time, paid the captain for my freight and all 
the other expenses of my voyage. But it so happened that the 35 
wind did not answer for three weeks, and you know, mother, 
that I could not command the elements. My misfortune was, 
that, when the wind served, I happened to be with a party 
in the country, and my friend the captain never inquired after 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

me, but set sail with as much indifference as if I had been on 
board. The remainder of my time I employed in the city and 
its environs, viewing everything curious, and you know no one 
can starve while he has money in his pocket. 
5 " Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I began to think 
of my dear mother and friends whom I had left behind me, and 
so bought that generous beast, Fiddle-back, and bade adieu to 
Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. This, to be sure, 
was but a scanty allowance for man and horse towards a 

10 journey of above a hundred miles ; but I did not despair, for I 
knew I must find friends on the road. 

" I recollected particularly an old and faithful acquaintance 
I made at college, who had often and earnestly pressed me to 
spend a summer with him, and he lived but eiglit miles from 

15 Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would expatiate on 
to me with peculiar emphasis. ' We shall,' says he, ' enjoy the 
delights of both city and country, and you shall command my 
stable and my purse.' 

" However, upon the way I met a poor woman all in tears, 

20 who told me her husband had been arrested for a debt he was 
not able to pay, and that his eight children must now starve, 
bereaved as they w^ere of his industry, which had been their 
only support. I thought myself at home, being not far from 
my good friend's house, and therefore parted with a moiety of 

25 all my store, and pray, mother, ought I not have given her the 
other half-crown, for what she got would be of little use to her? 
However, I soon arrived at the mansion of my affectionate 
friend, guarded by the vigilance of a huge mastiff, who flew at 
me and would have torn me to pieces but for the assistance of 

30 a woman, whose countenance was not less griiu than that of the 
dog ; yet she with great humanity relieved me from the jaws of 
this Cerberus,® and was prevailed on to carry up my name to 
her master. 

" Without suffering me to wait long, my old friend, who was 

35 then recovering from a severe fit t)f sickness, came down in his 
nightcap, nightgown, and slippers, and embraced me with the 
most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, after giving me a 
history of his indisposition, assured me that he considered him- 
self peculiarly fortunate in having under his roof the man he 



CHAPTER III 29 

most loved on earth, and whose stay with him must, above all 
things, contribute to perfect his recovery. I now repented 
sorely I had not given the poor woman the other half- 
crown, as I thought all my bills of humanity would be punctu- 
ally answered by this worthy man. I revealed to him my 5 
whole soul ; I opened to him all my distresses ; and freely 
owned that I had but one half-crown in my pocket; but that 
now like a ship after weathering out the storm, I considered 
myself secure in a safe and hospitable harbor. He made no 
answer, but walked about the room, rubbing his hands as one 10 
in deep study. This I imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a 
tender ijeart, which increased my esteem for him, and, as that 
increased, I gave the most favorable interpretation to his 
silence. I construed it into delicacy of sentiment, as if he 
dreaded to wound my pride by expressing his commiseration in 15 
words, leaving his generous conduct to speak for itself. 

" It now approached six o'clock in the evening ; and as I had 
eaten no breakfast, and as my spirits were raised, my appetite 
for dinner grew uncommonly keen. At length the old woman 
came into the room with two plates, one spoon, and a dirty 20 
cloth, which she laid upon the table. This appearance, without 
increasing my spirits, did not diminish my appetite. My pro- 
tectress soon returned with a small bowl of sago, a small por- 
ringer of sour milk, a loaf of stale brown bread, and the heel 
of an old cheese all over crawling with mites. My friend apolo- 25 
gized that his illness obliged him to live on slops, and that 
better fare was not in the house ; observing, at the same time, 
that a milk diet was certainly the most healthful ; and at eight 
o'clock he again recommended a regular life, declaring that for 
his part he would lie down ivith the lamb and rise ivith the lark. 30 
My hunger was at this time so exceedingly sharp that I wished 
for another slice of the loaf, but was obliged to go to bed with- 
out even that refreshment. 

" This lenten entertainment I had received made me resolve 
to depart as soon as possible ; accordingly, next morning, when 35 
I spoke of going, he did not oppose my resolution ; he rather 
commended my design, adding some very sage counsel upon 
the occasion. ' To be sure,' said he, ' the longer you stay away 
from your mother, the more you will grieve her and your other 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

friends; and possibly they are already afflicted at hearing of 
this foolish expedition you have made.' J^otwithstanding all 
this, and without any hope of softening such a sordid heart, 
I again renewed the tale of my distress, and asking ' how he 
5 thought I could travel above a hundred miles upon one half- 
crown ? ' I begged to borrow a single guinea, which I assured 
him should be repaid with thanks. ' And you know, sir,' said 
I, ' it is no more than I have done for you.' To which he firmly 
answered, ' Why, look you, Mr. Goldsmith, that is neither here 

10 nor there. I have paid you all you ever lent me, and this 
sickness of mine has left me bare of cash. But I have be- 
thought myself of a conveyance for you ; sell your horse, and I 
will furnish you a much better one to ride on.' I readily 
grasped at his proposal, and begged to see the nag ; on which 

15 he led me to his bedchamber, and from under the bed he pulled 
out a stout oak stick. ' Here he is,' said he ; ' take this in your 
hand, and it will carry you to your mother's with more safety 
than such a horse as you ride.' I was in doubt, when I got it 
into my hand, whether I should not, in the first place, apply it 

20 to his pate ; but a rap at the street-door made the wretch fly to 
it, and when I returned to the parlor he introduced me, as if 
nothing of the kind had happened, to the gentleman who 
entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most ingenious and worthy 
friend, of whom he had so often heard him speak with rapture. 

25 1 could scarcely compose myself ; and must have betrayed in- 
dignation in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor-at- 
law in the neighborhood, a man of engaging aspect and polite 
address. 

" After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to dine 

30 with him at his house. This I declined at first, as I wished to 
have no farther communication with my hospitable friend ; but 
at the solicitation of both I at last consented, determined as I 
was by two motives: one, that I was prejudiced in favor of the 
looks and manner of the counsellor ; and the other, that I stood 

35 in need of a comfortable dinner. And there, indeed, I found 
everything that I could wish, abundance without profusion, 
and elegance without affectation. In the evening, when my 
old friend, who had eaten very plentifully at his neighbor's 
table, but talked again of lying down with the lamb, made a 



CHAPTER III 31 

motion to me for retiring, our generous host requested I should 
take a bed with him, upon which I plainly told my old friend 
that he might go home and take care of the horse he had given 
me, but that I should never reenter his doors. He went away 
with a laugh, leaving me to add this to the other little things 5 
the counsellor already knew of his plausible neighbor, 

" And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile 
me to all my follies ; for here I spent three whole days. The 
counsellor had two sweet girls to his daughters, who played 
enchantingly on the harpsichord ; and yet it was but a melan- 10 
choly pleasure I felt the first time I heard them ; for that being 
the first time also that either of them had touched the instru- 
ment since their mother's death, I saw the tears in silence trickle 
down their father's cheeks. I every day endeavored to go 
away, but every day was pressed and obliged to stay. On my 15 
going, the counsellor offered me his purse, with a horse and 
servant to convey me home ; but the latter I declined, and 
only took a guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the road. 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

" To Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, Ballymahon." 20 

Such is the story given by the poet-errant of this his second 
sally in quest of adventures. We cannot but think it was here 
and there touched up a little with the fanciful pen of the future 
essayist, with a view to amuse his mother and soften her vexa- 
tion ; but even in these respects it is valuable as showing the 25 
early play of his humor, and his happy knack of extracting 
sweets from that worldly experience which to others yields 
nothing but bitterness. 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER IV 

Sallies forth as a Law Student. — Stumbles at the Outset. — Cousin Jane 
and the Valentine. — A Family Oracle. — Sallies forth as a Student of 
Medicine. — Hocus-pocus of a Boarding-House. — Transformations 
of a Leg of Mutton. — The mock Ghost. — Sketches of Scotland.— 
Trials of Toadyism. — A Poet's Purse for a Continental Tour. 

A NEW consultation was held among Goldsmith's friends as 
to his future course, and it was determined he should try the 
law. His uncle Contarine agreed to advance the necessary 
funds, and actually furnished him with fifty pounds, with which 

5 he set off for London, to enter on his studies at the Temple. ° 
Unfortunately, he fell in company at Dublin with a Roscommon 
acquaintance, one whose wits had been sharpened about town, 
who beguiled him into a gambling-house, and soon left him as 
penniless as when he bestrode the redoubtable Fiddle-back. 

10 He was so ashamed at this fresh instance of gross heedless- 
ness and imprudence, that he remained some time in Dublin 
without communicating to his friends his destitute condition. 
They heard of it, however, and he was invited back to the 
country, and indulgently forgiven by his generous uncle, but 

15 less readily by his mother, who was mortified and disheartened 
at seeing all her early hopes of him so repeatedly blighted. 
His brother Henry, too, began to lose patience at these succes- 
sive failures, resulting from thoughtless indiscretion; and a 
quarrel took place, which for some time interrupted their usu- 

20 ally affectionate intercourse. 

The only home where poor erring Goldsmith still received a 
welcome, was the parsonage of his affectionate forgiving uncle. 
Here he used to talk of literature with the good simple-hearted 
man, and delight him and his daughter with his verses. 

25 Jane, his early playmate, was now the woman grown; their 
intercourse was of a more intellectual kind than formerly ; they 
discoursed of poetry and music ; she played on the harpsichord, 
and he accompanied her with his flute. The music may not 
have been very artistic, as he never performed but by ear ; it 



CHAPTER IV 33 

had probably as much merit as the poetry, which, if we may 
judge by the following specimen, was as yet but juvenile : — 

TO A YOUNG LADY ON VALENTINE'S DAY 

WITH THE DRAWING OF A HEART 

With submission at your shrine, 5 

Comes a heart your Valentine ; 
From the side where once it grew, 
See it panting flies to you. 
Take it, fair one, to your breast, 

Soothe the fluttering thing to rest ; 10 

* Let the gentle, spotless toy 

Be your sweetest, greatest joy; 

Every night when wrapp'd in sleep. 

Next your heart the conquest keep ; 

Or if dreams your fancy move, 15 

Hear it whisper me and love ; 

Then in pity to the swain, 

Who must heartless else remain, 

Soft as gentle dewy show'rs, 

Slow descend on April flow'rs; 20 

Soft as gentle riv'lets glide, 

Steal unnoticed to my side ; 

If the gem you have to spare, 

Take your own and place it there. 

If this Valentine was intended for the fair Jane, and expres-25 
sive of a tender sentiment indulged by the stripling poet, it was 
unavailing ; as not long afterwards she was married to a Mr. 
Lawder. We trust, however, it was bitt a poetical passion of 
that transient kind which grows up in idleness and exhales 
itself in rhyme. While Oliver was thus piping and poetizing 30 
at the parsonage, his uncle Contarine received a visit from Dean 
Goldsmith of Cloyne, — a kind of magnate in the wide but 
improvident family connection, throughout which his word was 
law and almost gospel. This august dignitary was pleased to 
discover signs of talent in Oliver, and suggested that, as he had 35 
attempted divinity and law without success, he should now try 
physic. The advice came from too important a source to be 
disregarded, and it was determined to send him to Edinburgh 
to commence his studies. The Dean having given the advice, 



34 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

added to it, we -trust, his blessing, but no money; that was 
furnished from the scantier purses of Goldsmith's brother, his 
sister (Mrs. Hodson), and his ever-ready uncle, Contarine. 
It was in the autumn of 1752 that Goldsmith arrived in 
5 Edinburgh. His outset in that city came near adding to the 
list of his indiscretions and disasters. Having taken lodgings 
at haphazard, he left his trunk there, containing all his worldly 
effects, and sallied forth to see the town. After sauntering 
about the streets until a late hour, he thought of returning 

10 home, when, to his confusion, he found he had not acquainted 
himself with the name either of his landlady or of the street in 
which she lived. Fortunately, in the height of his whimsical 
perplexity, he met the cawdy° or porter who had carried his 
trunk, and who now served him as a guide. 

35 He did not remain long in the lodgings in which he had put 
up. The hostess was too adroit at that hocus-pocus of the table 
which often is practised in cheap boarding-houses. No one 
could conjure a single joint through a greater variety of forms. 
A loin of mutton, according to Goldsmith's account, would serve 

20 him and two fellow-students a whole week. " A brandered 
chop was served up one day, a fried steak another, collops with 
onion-sauce a third, and so on until the fleshy parts were quite 
consumed, when finally a dish of broth was manufactured from 
the bones on the seventh day, and the landlady rested from her 

25 labors." Goldsmith had a good-humored mode of taking things, 
and for a short time amused himself with the shifts and expedi- 
ents of his landlady, which struck him in a ludicrous manner ; he 
soon, however, fell in with fellow-students from his own coun- 
try, whom he joined at more eligible quarters. 

30 He now attended medical lectures, and attached himself to 
an association of students called the Medical Society. He set 
out, as usual, with the best intentions, but, as usual, soon fell 
into idle, convivial, thoughtless habits. Edinburgh was indeed 
a place of sore trial for one of his temperament. Convivial 

35 meetings were all the vogue, and the tavern was the universal 
r a] lying-place of good-fellowship. And then Goldsmith's inti- 
macies lay chiefly among the Irish students, who were always 
ready for a wild freak and frolic. Among them he was a prime 
favorite and somewhat of a leader, from his exuberance of 



CHAPTER IV ■ 35 

spirits, his vein of humor, and his talent at singing an Irish 
song and telling an Irish story. 

His usual carelessness in money-matters attended him. 
Though his supplies from home were scanty and irregular, he 
never could bring himself into habits of prudence and economy; 5 
often he was stripped of all his present finances at play ; often he 
lavished them away in fits of unguarded charity or generosity. 
Sometimes among his boon companions he assumed a ludicrous 
swagger in money-matters, which no one afterward was more 
ready than himself to laugh at. At a convivial meeting with a 10 
number of his fellow-students he suddenly proposed to draw 
lots with any one present which of the two should treat the 
whole party to the play. The moment the proposition had 
bolted from his lips, his heart was in his throat. " To my great 
though secret joy," said he, " they all declined the challenge. 15 
Had it been accepted, and had I proved the loser, a part of my 
wardrobe must have been pledged in order to raise the money." 

At another of these meetings there was an earnest dispute on 
the question of ghosts, some being firm believers in the possi- 
bility of departed spirits returning to visit their friends and fa- 20 
miliar haunts. One of the disputants set sail the next day for 
London, but the vessel put back through stress of weather. His 
return was unknown except to one of the believers in ghosts, 
who concerted with him a trick to be played off on the opposite 
party. In the evening, at a meeting of the students, the discus- 25 
sion was renewed ; and one of the most strenuous opposers of 
ghosts was asked whether he considered himself proof against 
ocular demonstration. He persisted in his scoffing. Some sol- 
emn process of conjuration was performed, and the comrade 
■supposed to be on his way to London made his appearance. 30 
The effect was fatal. The unbeliever fainted at the sight, and 
ultimately went mad. We have no account of what share Gold- 
smith took in this transaction, at which he was present. 

The following letter to his friend Bryanton contains some of 
Goldsmith's impressions concerning Scotland and its inhabit- 35 
ants, and gives indications of that humor which characterized 
some of his later writings. 



36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" Robert Bryanton, at Ballymahon, Ireland. 

"Edinburgh, September 26th, 1753. 
" My dear Bob, — 

" How many good excuses (and you know I was ever good at 
5 an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful si- 
lence. I might tell how I wrote a long letter on my first coming 
hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an answer ; 
I might allege that business (with business you know I was 
always pestered) had never given me time to finger a pen. But 

10 I suppress those and twenty more as plausible, and as easily 
invented, since they might be attended with a slight inconven- 
ience of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth. An 
hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has 
hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my 

15 writing at least twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in 
Ireland. JSTo turn-spit-dog° gets up into his wheel with moi"e 
reluctance than I sit down to write ; yet no dog ever loved the 
roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address. 

" Yet what shall I say now I am entered? Shall I tire you 

20 with a description of this unfruitful country ; where I must 
lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys 
scarcely able to feed a rabbit ? Man alone seems to be the 
only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor 
soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal land- 

25 scape. No grove, nor brook, lend their music to cheer the 
stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet 
with all these disadvantages to call him down to humility, a 
Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. The poor have 
pride ever ready to relieve them. If mankind should happen 

30 to despise them, they are masters of their own admiration ; and 
that they can plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

" From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one ad- 
vantage this country enjoys ; namely, the gentlemen here are 
much better bred than among us. No such character here as 

35 our fox- hunters ; and they have expressed great surprise when I 
informed them that some men in Ireland, of one thousand 
pounds a year, spend their whole lives in running after a hare, 



CHAPTER IV 37 

and drinking to be drunk. Truly, if such a being, equipped in 
his hunting-dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they 
would behold him with the same astonishment that a country- 
man does King George on horseback. 

" The men here have generally high cheek-bones, and are lean 5 
and swarthy, fond of action, dancing in particular. Now that I 
have mentioned dancing, let me say something of their balls, 
which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters the 
dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up by the ladies, 
who sit dismally in a group by themselves ; — in the other end 10 
stand their pensive partners that are to be; — but no more in- 
tercourse, between the sexes than there is between two countries 
at war. The ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh ; 
but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to 
Interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or intendant, or w^hat 15 
you will, pitches upon a lady and gentleman to walk a minuet ; 
which they perform with a formality that approaches to de- 
spondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gaunt- 
let, all stand up to country dances ; each gentleman furnished 
with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress ; so they dance 20 
much, say nothing, and thus concludes our assembly. I told 
a Scotch gentleman that such profound silence resembled the 
ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honor of Ceres° ; 
and the Scotch gentleman told me (and, faith I believe he was 
right) that I was a very great pedant for my pains. 25 

" Now I am come to the ladies ; and to show that I love Scot- 
land, and everything that belongs to so charming a country, I 
insist on it, and will give him leave to break my head that denies 
it — that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times finer and 
handsomer than the Irish. To be sure, now, I see your sisters 30 
Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality, — but tell 
them flatly, I don't value them — or their fine skins, or eyes, or 

good sense, or , a potato ; — for I say, and will maintain it ; 

and as a convincing proof (I am in a great passion) of what I 
assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. But to be less 35 
serious ; where will you find a language so prettily become a 
pretty mouth as the broad Scotch ? And the women here 
speak it in its highest purity ; for instance, teach one of your 
young ladies at home to pronounce the " Whoar wull I gong ? " 



38 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

with a becoming widening of mouth, and I'll lay my life 
they'll wound every hearer. 

" We have no such character her^ as a coquette, but alas ! 
-how many envious prudes ! Some days ago I walked into my 
5 Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover), ^ 
when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her 
beauty to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt 
equipage) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, or more 
properly the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight 

10 envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies who sat with 
me, to find faults in her faultless form. — ' For my part,' says 
the first, ' I think what I always thought, that the Duchess has 
too much of the red in her complexion.' ' Madam, I am of your 
opinion,' says the second ; ' I think her face has a palish cast 

15 too much on the delicate order.' ' And, let me tell you,' added 
the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to the size of an 
issue, 'that the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth.' 
— At this every lady drew up her mouth as if going to pro- 
nounce the letter P. 

20 " But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women 
with whom I have scarcely any correspondence ! There are, 'tis 
certain, handsome women here ; and 'tis certain they have hand- 
some men to keep them company. An ugly and poor man is soci- 
ety only for himself ; and such society the world lets me enjoy 

25 in great abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, and 
Xature a person to look charming in the eyes of the fair. Nor 
do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while I may sit down 
and laugh at the world and at myself — the most ridiculous 
object in it. But you see I am grown downright splenetic, aud 

30 perhaps the fit may continue till I receive an answer to this. I 
know you cannot send me much news from Ballymahon, but 
such as it is, send it all ; everything you send will be agreeable 
to me. 

" Has George Conway put up a sign yet ; or John Bincly ° left 

35 off drinking drams ; or Tom Allen got a new wig ? But I leave 

1 William Maclellan, who claimed the title, and whose son succeeded 
in establishing the claim in 1773. The father is said to have voted at 
the election of the sixteen Peers for Scotland ; and to have sold gloves 
in the lobby at this and other xJublic assemblages. 



CHAPTER IV 39 

fou to your own choice what to write. While I live, know you 
have a true friend in yours, &c. &c. &c. 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

"P. S. — Give my sincere respects (not compliments, do you 
mind) to your agreeable family, and give my service to my 5 
mother, if you see her ; for, as you express it in Ireland, I have 

a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me, , Student 

in Physic, in Edinburgh." 

Nothing worthy of preservation appeared from his pen during 
his residence in Edinburgh ; and indeed his poetical powers, 10 
highly as they had been estimated by his friends, had not as yet 
produced anything of superior merit. He made on one occasion 
a month's excursion to the Highlands. " I set out the first day 
on foot," says he, in a letter to his uncle Contarine, " but an ill- 
iiatured corn I have on my toe has for the future prevented that 15 
cheap mode of travelling ; so the second day I hired a horse, 
about the size of a ram, and he walked away (trot he could not) 
as pensive as his master." 

During his residence in Scotland his convivial talents gained 
him at one time attentions in a high quarter, which, however, 20 
he had the good sense to appreciate correctly. " I have spent," 
says he, in one of his letters, " more than a fortnight every 
second day at the Duke of Hamilton's ; but it seems they like 
me more as a jester than as a companion, so I disdained so servile 
an employment as unworthy my calling as a physician." Here 25 
we again find the origin of another passage in his autobiogra- 
phy, under the character of the "Man in Black," wherein that 
worthy figures as a flatterer to a great man. " At first," says 
he, " I was surprised that the situation of a flatterer at a great 
man's table could be thought disagreeable; there was no great 30 
trouble in listening attentively when his lordship spoke, and 
laughing when he looked round for api^lause. This, even good 
manners might have obliged me to perform. I found, however, - 
too soon, his lordship was a greater dunce than myself, and 
from that moment flattery was at an end. I now rather aimed 35 
at setting him right than at receiving his absurdities with sub- 
mission : to flatter those we do not know is an easy task ; but to 



40 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

flatter our intimate acquaintances, all whose foibles are strong: _ 
in our eyes, is drudgery insupportable. Every time I now 
opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to my conscience; 
his lordship soon perceived me to be very unfit for his service : I 
5 was therefore discharged ; my patron at the same time being: 
graciously pleased to observe that he believed I was tolerably 
good-natured and had not the least harm in me." 

After spending two winters at Edinburgh, Goldsmith pre- 
pared to finish his medical studies on the Continent, for which 

10 his uncle Contarine agreed to furnish the funds. " I intend,"' 
said he, in a letter to his uncle, " to visit Paris, where the great! 
Farheim, Petit, and Du Hamel de Moncean instruct their pupil^^ 
in all the branches of medicine. They speak French, and con- 
sequently! shall have much the advantage of most of my conn- 

15 try men, as I am perfectly acquainted with that language, and 
few who leave Ireland are so. I shall spend the spring and 
summer in Paris, and the beginning of next winter go tO'i 
Leyden. The great Albinus^ is still alive there, and 'twill be 
proper to go, though only to have it said that we have studied 

20 in so famous a university. 

"As I shall not have another opportunity of receiving money' 
from your bounty till my return to Ireland, so I have drawn for 
the last sum that I hope I shall ever trouble you for; 'tis £20. 
And now, dear sir, let me here acknowledge the humility of the; 

25 station in which you found me ; let me tell how I was de- • 
spised by most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless pov- 
erty, was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make me 

her own, when you But I stop here, to inquire how your 

health goes on? How does my cousin Jenny, and has she 

30 recovered her late complaint? How does my poor Jack Gold- 
smith? I fear his disorder is of such a nature as he won't 
easily recover. I wish, my dear sir, you would make me hapj^y 
by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall hardly 
hear from you. . . . Give my — how shall I express it ? — give 

35 my earnest love to Mr. and Mrs. Lawder." 

Mrs. Lawder was Jane, his early playmate — the object of 
his valentine — his first poetical inspiration. She had been for 
some time married. 
Medical instruction, it will be perceived, was the ostensible 



CHAPTER V 41 

motive for this visit to the Continent, but the real one, in all 
probability, was his long-cherished desire to see foreign parts. 
This, however, he would not acknowledge even to himself, but 
sought to reconcile his roving propensities with some grand 
moral purpose. "I esteem the traveller who instructs the 5 
tieart," says he, in one of his subsequent writings, " but I de- 
spise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who 
leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher ; but 
he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind im- 
pulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond." He, of course, was to 10 
travel as a philosopher, and in truth his outfits for a Continen- 
tal tour were in character. " I shall carry just £33 to France," 
said he, " with good store of clothes, shirts, &c., and that with 
economy will suffice.'" He forgot to make mention of his flute, 
which it will be found had occasionally to come in play when 15 
economy could not replenish his purse, nor philosophy find him 
a supper. Thus slenderly provided with money, prudence, or 
experience, and almost as slightly guarded against " hard 
knocks " as the hero of La Mancha, whose head-piece was half 
iron, half pasteboard, he made his final sally forth upon the 20 
world; hoping all things; believing all things; little antici- 
pating the checkered ills in store for him ; little thinking when 
he penned his valedictory letter to his good uncle Contarine, that 
he was never to see him more ; never to return after all his 
wandering to the friend of his infancy; never to revisit his 25 
early and fondly remembered haunts at "sweet Lissoy" and 
Ballymahon. 



CHAPTER V 



The agreeable Fellow-Passengers. — Risks from Friends picked up by 
the Wayside. — Sketches of Holland and the Dutch. — Shifts while a 
poor Student at Leyden. — The Tulip-Speculation. — The provident 
Flute. — Sojourn at Paris. — Sketch of Voltaire. — Travelling Shifts 
of a Philosophic Vagabond. 

His usual indiscretion attended Goldsmith at the very out- 
set of his foreign enterprise. He had intended to take shipping 
at Leith for Holland ; but on arriving at that port, he found a 30 



42 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ship about to sail for Bordeaux, with six agreeable passengers, 
whose acquaintance he had probably made at the inn. He was 
not a man to resist a sudden impulse ; so, instead of embarking 
for Holland, he found himself ploughing the seas on his way 
5 to the other side of the Continent. Scarcely had the shi23 been 
two days at sea, when she was driven by stress of weather to 
jSTewcastle-upon-Tyne. Here " of course " Goldsmith and his 
agreeable fellow-passengers found it expedient to go on shore 
and " refresh themselves after the fatigues of the voyage." " Of 

10 course " they frolicked and made merry until a late hour in the 

evening, when, in the midst of their hilarity, the door was 

burst open, and a sergeant and twelve grenadiers entered with 

fixed bayonets, and took the whole convivial party prisoners. 

It seems that the agreeable companions with whom our 

15 greenhorn had struck up such a sudden intimacy, were Scotch- 
men in the French service, who had been in Scotland enlisting 
recruits for the French army. 

In vain Goldsmith protested his innocence ; he was marched 
off with his fellow-revellers to prison whence he with difficulty 

20 obtained his release at the end of a fortnight. With his cus- 
tomary facility, however, at ]Dalliating his misadventures, he 
found everything turn out for the best. His imprisonment 
saved his life, for during his detention the ship proceeded on 
her voyage, but was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and 

25 all on board perished. 

Goldsmith's second embarkation was for Holland direct, and 
in nine days he arrived at Rotterdam, whence he proceeded, 
without any more deviations, to Leyden. He gives a whimsical 
picture,° in one of his letters, of the appearance of the Hol- 

30 landers. " The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature 
from him of former times : he in everything imitates a French- 
man but in his easy, disengaged air. He is vastly ceremonious, 
and is, perhaps, exactly what a Frenchman might have been in 
the reign of Louis XIY. Such are the better bred. But the 

35 downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures in nature. 
Upon a lank head of hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat 
laced with black ribband ; no coat, but seven waistcoats and 
nine pair of breeches, so that his hips reach up almost to his 
armpits. This well-clothed vegetable is now fit to see company 



CHAPTER V 43 

or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the object of his 
appetite ! why, she wears a large fur cap, with a deal of Flan- 
ders lace ; and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on 
two petticoats. 

" A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic admirer 5 
but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every woman carries in 
her hand a stove of coals, which, when she sits, she snugs under 
her petticoats, and at this chimney, dozing Strephon° lights 
his pipe." 

In the same letter he contrasts Scotland and Holland. " There, 10 
hills and rocks intercept every prospect ; here, it is all a contin- 
ued plain. There you might see a well-dressed Duchess issu- 
ing from a dirty close, and here a dirty Dutchman inhabiting 
a palace. The Scotch may be compared to a tulip, planted in 
dung; but I can never see a Dutchman in his own house, but 15 
I think of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox." 

The country itself awakened his admiration, "l^othing," 
said he, " can equal its beauty ; wherever I turn my eyes, fine 
houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas, present them- 
selves ; but when you enter their towns, you are charmed 20 
beyond description. No misery is to be seen here, every one 
is usefully employed." And again, in his noble description in 
The Traveller: — 

"To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Imbosom'd in the deep where Holland lies, 25 

Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
Lift tlie tall rampire's artificial pride. 

Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, 30 

The firm connected bulwark seems to grow ; 
Spreads its long arms amid the watery roar. 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile 
Sees an amphibious world before him smile : 35 

The slow canal, the yellow blossom'd vale. 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail. 
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 
A new creation rescued from his reign." 

He remained about a year at Leyden, attending the lectures 40 
of Gaubius on chemistry and Albinus on anatomy ; though his 



44 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

studies are said to have been miscellaneous, and directed to 
literature rather than science. The thirty-three pounds with 
which he had set out on his travels were soon consumed, and 
he was put to many a shift to meet his expenses until his pre- 

5 carious remittances should arrive. He had a good friend on 

these occasions in a fellow-student and countryman, named 

Ellis, who afterwards rose to eminence as a physician. He 

used frequently to loan small sums to Goldsmith, which were 

' always scrupulously paid. Ellis discovered the innate merits 

10 of the poor awkward student, and used to declare in after-life 
that "it was a common remark in Leyden, that in all the pecu- 
liarities of Goldsmith, an elevation of mind was to be noted ; a 
philosophical tone and manner; the feelings of a gentleman, 
and the language and information of a scholar." 

15 Sometimes, in his emergencies, Goldsmith undertook to teach 
the English language. It is true he was ignorant of the Dutch, 
but he had a smattering of the French, picked up among the 
Irish priests at Ballymahon. He depicts his whimsical embar- 
rassment in this respect, in his account in the Vicar of Wakejield 

20 of the "Philosophic Vagabond" who went to Holland to teach 
the natives English, without knowing a word of their own lan- 
guage. Sometimes, when sorely pinched, and sometimes, per- 
haps, when flush, he resorted to the gambling-tables, which in 
those days abounded in Holland. His good friend Ellis repeat- 

25 edly warned him against this unfortunate propensity, but in 
vain. It brought its own cure, or rather its own punishment, 
by stripping him of every shilling. 

Ellis once more stepped in to his relief with a true Irishman's 
generosity, but with more considerateness than generally char- 

30 acterizes an Irishman, for he only granted pecuniary aid on con- 
dition of his quitting the sphere of danger. Goldsmith gladly 
consented to leave Holland, being anxious to visit other parts. 
He intended to proceed to Paris and pursue his studies there, 
and was furnished by his friend with money for the journey. 

35 Unluckily, he rambled into the garden of a florist just before 
quitting Leyden. The tulip-mania was still prevalent in Hol- 
land, and some species of that splendid flower brought immense 
prices. In wandering through the garden. Goldsmith recol- 
lected that his uncle Contarine was a tulip-fancier. The 



CHAPTER V 45 

thought suddenly struck him that here was an opportunity of 
testifying, in a delicate manner, his sense of that generous 
uncle's past kindnesses. In an instant his hand was in his 
pocket; a number of choice and costly tulip-roots were pur- 
chased and packed up for Mr. Contarine ; and it was not until 5 
he had paid for them that he bethought himself that he had 
spent all the money borrowed for his travelling expenses. Too 
proud, however, to give up his Journey, and too shamefaced to 
make another appeal to his friend's liberality, he determined 
to travel on foot, and depend upon chance and good luck for 10 
the means of getting forward; and it is said that he actually 
set off on a tour of the Continent, in February, 1755, with but 
one spare shirt, a flute, and a single guinea. 

" Blessed," says one of his biographers, " with a good consti- 
tution, an adventurous spirit, and with that thoughtless, or, per- 15 
haps, happy disposition which takes no care for to-morrow, he 
continued his travels for a long time in spite of innumerable 
privations." In his amusing narrative of the adventures of a 
" Philosophic Vagabond " in the Vicar of Wakefield, we find 
shadowed out the expedients he pursued. " I had some knowl- 20 
edge of music, with a tolerable voice ; I now turned what was 
once my amusement into a present means of subsistence. I 
passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among 
such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry, for I 
ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. When- 25 
ever I approached a peasant's house towards nightfall, I played 
one of my merriest tunes, and that procured me not only a lodg- 
ing, but subsistence for the next day ; but in truth I must own, 
whenever I attempted to entertain persons of a higher rank, 
they always thought my performance odious, and never made 30 
me any return for my endeavors to please them." 

At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of Rouelle, then in 
great vogue, where he says he witnessed as bright a circle of 
beauty as graced the court of Versailles. His love of the- 
atricals also led him to attend the performances of the celebrated 35 
actress Mademoiselle Clairon,° with which he was greatly de- 
lighted. He seems to have looked upon the state of society with 
the eye of a philosopher, but to have read the signs of the times 
with the prophetic eye of a poet. In his rambles about the en- 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

viroiis of Paris he was struck with the immense quantities of 
game running about almost in a tame state ; and saw in those 
costly and rigid preserves for the amusement and luxury of the 
privileged few, a sure " badge of the slavery of the people." 
5 This slavery he predicted was drawing towards a close. " When 
I consider that these parliaments, the members of which are all 
created by the court, and the presidents of which can only act 
by immediate direction, presume even to mention privileges and 
freedom, who till of late received directions from the throne 

10 with implicit humility; when this is considered, I cannot help 
fancying that the genius of Freedom has entered that kingdom 
in disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs more succes- 
sively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the coun- 
try will certainly once more be free." Events have testified^ to 

15 the sage forecast of the poet. 

During a brief sojourn in Paris, he appears to have gained 
access to valuable society, and to have had the honor and pleas- 
ure of making the acquaintance of Voltaire° ; of whom, in after- 
years, he wrote a memoir. "As a companion," says he, "no 

20 man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the conversa- 
tion; which, however, was not always the case. In company 
which he either disliked or despised, few could be more reserved 
than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, and got over 
a hesitating manner, which sometimes he was subject to, it 

25 was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed insensi- 
bly to gather beauty; every muscle in it had meaning, and his 
eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who writes 
this memoir," continues he, " remembers to have seen him in a 
select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject 

30 happened to turn upon English taste and learning. Fontenelle, 
(then nearly a hundred years old,) who was of the party, 
and who being unacquainted with the language or authors of 
the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit truly vul- 
gar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the English, and 

35 knew something of their literary pretensions, attempted to vin- 
dicate their poetry and learning, but with unequal abilities. 
The company quickly perceived that Fontenelle was superior in 
the dispute, and w^ere surprised at the silence which Voltaire 
had preserved all the former part of the night, particularly as 



CHAPTER V 47 

the conversation happened to turn upon one of his favorite 
topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph until about twelve 
o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. 
His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with 
the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now and then let 5 
fall the finest strokes of railery upon his antagonist ; and his 
harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess, that, 
whether from national partiality, or from the elegant sensibility 
of his manner, I never was so charmed, nor did 1 ever remem- 
ber so a^ssolute a victory as he gained in this dispute." Gold- 10 
smith's ramblings took him into Germany and Switzerland, 
from which last-mentioned country he sent to his brother in 
Ireland the first brief sketch, afterwards amplified into his 
poem of The Traveller. 

At Geneva he became travelling tutor to a mongrel young 15 
gentleman, son of a London pawnbroker, who had been sud- 
denly elevated into fortune and absurdity by the death of an 
uncle. The youth, before setting up for a gentleman, had been 
an attorney's apprentice, and was an arrant pettifogger in 
money-matters. Never were two beings more illy assorted than 20 
he and Goldsmith. We may form an idea of the tutor and the 
pupil from the following extract from the narrative of the 
" Philosophic Yagabond." 

" I was to be the young gentleman's governor, but with a 
proviso that he could always be permitted to govern himself. 25 
My pujDil, in fact, understood the art of guiding in money-con- 
cerns much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about 
two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West 
Indies ; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management 
of it, had bound him apprentice to an attorney. Thus avarice 30 
was his prevailing passion ; all his questions on the road were, 
how money might be saved, — which was the least expensive 
course of travel, — whether anything could be bought that 
would turn to account when disposed of again in London ? 
Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for nothing he was 35 
ready enough to look at ; but if the sight of them was to be 
paid for, he usually asserted that he had been told that they 
were not worth seeing. He never paid a bill that he would not 
observe how amazingly expensive travelling was ; and all this 
though not yet twenty-one." 40 



48 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

In this sketch Goldsmith undoubtedly shadows forth his 
annoyances as travelling tutor to this concrete young gentle- 
man, compounded of the pawnbroker, the pettifogger, and the 
West Indian heir, with an overlaying of the city miser. They 
5 had continual difficulties on all points of expense until they 
reached Marseilles, where both were glad to separate. 

Once more on foot, but freed from the irksome duties of 
" bear-leader," and with some of his pay, as tutor, in his pocket, 
Goldsmith continued his half vagrant peregrinations through 

10 part of France and Piedmont° and some of the Italian States. 
He had acquired, as has been shown, a habit of shifting along 
and living by expedients, and a new one presented itself in 
Italy. " My skill in music," says he, in the '' Philosophic Vaga- 
bond," " could avail me nothing in a country where every 

15 peasant was a better musician than I ; but by this time I had 
acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well, 
and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign univer- 
sities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical 
theses maintained against every adventitious disputant, for 

20 which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can 
claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." 
Though a poor wandering scholar, his reception in these learned 
piles was as free from humiliation as in the cottages of the 
peasantry. " With the members of these establishments," said 

25 he, " I could converse on topics of literature, and then I alicays 
forgot the meanness of my circumstances." 

At Padua, where he remained some months, he is said to 
have taken° his medical degree. It is probable he was brought 
to a pause in this city by the illness of his uncle Contarine; 

30 who had hitherto assisted him in his wanderings by occasional, , 
though, of course, slender remittances. Deprived of this source 
of supplies, he wrote to his friends in Ireland, and especially to 
his brother-in-law, Hodson, describing his destitute situation. 
His letters brought him neither money nor reply. It appears, 

35 from subsequent correspondence, that his brother-in-law actu- 
ally exerted himself to raise a subscription for his assistance * 
among his relatives, friends, and acquaintance, but without 
success. Their faith and hope in him were most probably at 
an end ; as yet he had disappointed them at every point, he 



CHAPTER VI 49 

had given none of the anticipated proofs of talent, and they 
were too poor to support what they may have considered the 
wandering propensities of a heedless spendthrift. 

Thus left to his own precarious resources, Goldsmith gave 
up all further wandering in Italy, without visiting the south, 5 
though Rome and Naples must have held out powerful attrac- 
tions to one of his poetical cast. Once more resuming his 
pilgrim staff, he turned his face toward England, '^walking 
along from city to city, examining mankind more nearly, and 
seeing b«th sides of the picture." In traversing France his 10 
flute — his magic flute! — was once more in requisition, as we 
may conclude by the following passage in his Traveller : — 

"Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir 15 

With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire ! 
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew; 
And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and niarr'd the dancer's skill; 20 

Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages ; Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 25 

Has frisk'd beneath the burden of three-score." 



CHAPTER VI 



Landing in England. — Shifts of a Man without Money. — The Pestle 
and Mortar. — Theatricals in a Barn. — Launch upon London. — A 
City Night-Scene. — Struggles with Penury. — Miseries of a Tutor. 

— A Doctor in the Suburb. — Poor Practice and second-hand Finery. 

— A Tragedy in Embryo. — Project of the Written Mountains. 

After two years spent in roving about the Continent, "pur- 
suing novelty," as he said, "and losing content," Goldsmith 
landed at Dover early in 1756. He appears to have had no 
definite plan of action. The death of his uncle Contarine,° and 30 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the neglect of his relatives and friends to reply to his letters, 
seem to have produced in him a temporary feeling of loneliness 
and destitution, and his only thought was to get to London, 
and throw himself npon the world. But how was he to get 
5 there ? His purse was empty. England was to him as com- 
pletely a foreign land as any part of the Continent, and where 
on earth is a penniless stranger more destitute? His flute and 
his philosophy were no longer of any avail ; the English boors 
cared nothing for music ; there were no convents ; and as to 

10 the learned and the clergy, not one of them would give a vagrant 
scholar a supper and night's lodging for the best thesis that 
ever was argued. " You may easily imagine," says he, in a 
subsequent letter to his brother-in-law, " what difficulties I had 
to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, 

15 money, or impudence, and that in a country where being born 
an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, in 
such circumstances, would have had recourse to the friar's cord 
or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle 
to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other." j 

20 He applied at one place, we are told, for employment in the I 
shop of a country apothecary ; but all his medical science gath- 
ered in foreign universities could not gain him the manage- 
ment of a pestle and mortar. He even resorted, it is said, to 
the stage as a temporary expedient, and figured in low comedy 

25 at a country town in Kent. This accords with his last shift of 
the " Philosophic Vagabond," ° and with the knowledge of coun- 
try theatricals displayed in his Adventures of a Strolling Player, 
or may be a story suggested by them. AH this part of his 
career, however, in which he must have trod the lowest paths of 

30 humility, are only to be conjectured from vague traditions, or 

scraps of autobiography gleaned from his miscellaneous writings. 

At length we find him launched on the great metropolis, or 

rather drifting about its streets, at night, in the gloomy month 

of February, with but a few half-pence in his pocket. The 

35 Deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than 
the streets of London at such a time, and to a stranger in such 
a plight. Do we want a picture as an illustration? We have 
it in his own works, and furnished, doubtless, from his own 
experience. 



CHAPTER VI 51 

" The clock has just struck two ; what a gloom hangs all 
around ! no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the 
distant watch-dog. How few appear in those streets, which 
but some few hours ago were crowded ! But who are those who 
make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from 5 
wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? They are strangers, 
wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to 
expect redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. 
Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaci- 
ated witiii disease ; the world has disclaimed them ; society turns 10 
its back upon their distress, and has given them up to naked- 
ness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen 
happier days, and heen flattered into beauty. They are now 
turned out to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now, lying 
at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts 15 
are insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will not re- 
lieve them. 

" Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of 
wretches I cannot relieve ! Poor houseless creatures ! The 
world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief." ° 20 

Poor houseless Goldsmith! we may here ejaculate — to what 
shifts he must have been driven to find shelter and sustenance 
for himself in this his first venture into London ! Many years 
afterwards, in the days of his social elevation, he startled a 
polite circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's° by humorously dating an 25 
anecdote about the time he " lived among the beggars at Axe 
Lane." Such may have been the desolate quarters with which 
he was fain to content himself when thus adrift upon the town, 
with but a few half-pence in his pocket. 

The first authentic trace we have of him in this new part of 30 
his career, is filling the situation of an usher to a school, and 
even this employ he obtained with some difficulty, after a refer- 
ence for a character to his friends in the University of Dublin. 
In the Vicar of Wakefield he makes George Primrose un- 
dergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requisites for an 35 
usher. "Have you been bred apprentice to the business?" 
"No." "Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress the 
boys' hair?" "No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can 
you lie three in a bed ? " " No." " Then you will never do for 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

a school. Have you a good stomach?" "Yes." "Then you 
will by no means do for a school. I have been an usher in a 
boarding-school, myself, and may I die of an anodyne neck- 
lace,° but I had rather be under-turnkey in Newgate. I was up 

5 early and late : I was browbeat by the master, hated for my 
ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys." 

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situation, and 
to the mortifications experienced there we doubtless owe the 
picturings given in his writings of the hardships of an usher's 

10 life. " He is generally," says he, " the laughing-stock of the 
school. Every trick is played upon him ; the oddity of his 
manner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule ; 
the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in the 
laugh ; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill-usage, 

15 lives in a state of war with all the family." ... " He is obliged, 
perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French teacher, 
who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering and fillet- 
ing his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his rancid 
pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the bolster." ° 

20 His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of a chemist 
near Fish-Street Hill. After remaining here a few months, he 
heard that Dr. Sleigh, who had been his friend and fellow- 
student at Edinburgh, was in London. Eager to meet with a 
friendly face in this land of strangers, he immediately called on 

25 him ; " but though it was Sunday, and it is to be supposed I 
was in my best clothes. Sleigh scarcely knew me — such is the 
tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did 
recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared 
his purse and friendship with me during his continuance in 

30 London." 

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now com- 
menced the jDractice of medicine, but in a small way, in Bank- 
side, Southwark,° and chiefly among the poor ; for he wanted 
the figure, address, polish, and management, to succeed among 

35 the rich. His old schoolmate and college companion, Beatty, 
who used to aid him with his purse at the university, met him 
about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of a second- 
hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neckcloth of a 
fortnigfht's wear. 



CHAPTER VI 53 

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in the 
eyes of his early associate. " He was practising physic," he 
said, " and doing very tcell ! " At this moment poverty was 
pinching him to the bone in spite ai' his practice and his dirty 
finery, tlis fees were necessarily small and ill paid, and he was 5 
fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. Here his 
quondam fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of service, intro- 
ducing him to some <^f the booksellers, who gave him occasional, 
though starveling, employment. According to tradition, how- 
ever, his most efficient patron just now was a journeyman 10 
printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside, who had formed 
a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his poverty and his 
literary shifts. The printer was in the employ of Mr. Samuel 
Richardson, ° the author of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles 
Grandison ; who combined the novelist and the publisher, and 15 
was in flourishing circumstances. Through the journeyman's 
intervention Goldsmith is said to haye become acquainted with 
Richardson, who employed him as reader and corrector of the 
press, at his printing establishment in Salisbury Court, — an 
occupation which he alternated with his medical duties. 20 

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, he began 
to form literary acquaintances, among whom the most impor- 
tant was Dr. Young, the author of Night Thoughts, a poem in 
the height of fashion. It is not probable, however, that much 
familiarity took place at the time between the literary lion of 25 
the day and the poor iEsculapius° of Bankside, the humble cor- 
rector of the press. Still the communion with literary men had 
its effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr. Farr, one of his 
Edinburgh fellow-students, who was at London about this time, 
attending the hospitals and lectures, gives us an amusing ac-30 
count of Goldsmith in his literary character. 

" Early in January he called upon me one morning before I 
was up, and, on my entering the room, I recognized my old 
acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with 
his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the 35 
poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we had finished our 
breakfast, he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he 
said he had brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded 
inability, when he began to read ; and every part on which I 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

expressed ^ doubt as to the propriety was immediately blotted 
out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust to my 
judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified to 
decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had sub- 
5 mitted his production, so far as he had written, to Mr. Richard- 
son, the author of Clarissa, on which I peremptorily declined 
offering another criticism on the performance." 

From the graphic description given of him by Dr. Farr, it 
will be perceived that the tarnished finery of green and gold had 

10 been succeeded by a professional suit of black, to which, we are 
told, were added the wig and cane indispensable to medical 
doctors in those days. The coat was a second-hand one, of 
rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast, which he adroitly 
covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical visits ; 

15 and we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of courtesy 
with a patient who persisted in endeavoring to relieve him from 
the hat, which only made him press it more devoutly to his 
heart. 

Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy men- 

20 tioned by Dr. Farr ; it was probably never completed. The 
same gentleman speaks of a strange Quixotic scheme which 
Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, " of going to 
decipher the inscriptions on the loritten mountains ° though he 
was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which 

25 they might be supposed to be written. " Tlie salary of three 
hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, " which had been left for the 
purpose, was the temptation." This was probably one of many 
dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to teem. 
On such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and magnifi- 

30 cently, but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination rather 
than a well-instructed judgment. He had always a great notion 
of expeditions to the East, and wonders to be seen and effected 
in the Oriental countries. 



CHAPTER VII 55 



CHAPTER YII 

Life of a Pedagogue. — Kindness to Schoolboys. — Pertness in Return. 
. — Expensive Charities. — The Griffiths and the Monthly Review. 
— Toils of a Literary Hack. — Rupture with the Griffiths. 

Among the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates in London 
during. this time of precarious struggle, were certain of his 
former fellow-students in Edinburgh. One of these was the 
son of a Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister, who kept a classical 
school of eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young Milner had 5 
a favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and attainments, 
and cherished for him that goodwill which his genial nature 
seems ever to have inspired among his school and college asso- 
ciates. His father falling ill, the young man negotiated with 
Goldsmith to take temporary charge of the school. The latter 10 
readily consented; for he was discouraged by the slow growth 
of medical reputation and practice, and as yet had no confidence 
in the coy smiles of the Muse. Laying by his wig and cane, 
therefore, and once more wielding the ferule, he resumed the 
character of the pedagogue, and for some time reigned as vice- 15 
gerent over the academy at Peckham. He appears to have been 
well-treated by both Dr. Milner and his wife ; and became a 
favorite with the scholars from his easy, indulgent good-nature. 
He mingled in their sports ; told them droll stories ; ]3layed on 
the flute for their amusement; and spent his money in treating 20 
them to sweetmeats and other schoolboy dainties. His famil- 
iarity was sometimes carried too far ; he indulged in boyish 
pranks and practical jokes, and drew upon himself retorts in 
kind, which, however, he bore with great good-humor. Once, 
indeed, he was touched to the quick by a piece of schoolboy 25 
pertness. After playing on the flute, he spoke with enthusi- 
asm of music, as delightful in itself, and as a valuable accom- 
plishment for a gentleman, whereupon a youngster, with a 
glance at his ungainly person, wished to know if he considered 
himself a gentleman. Poor Goldsmith, feelingly alive to the 30 
awkwardness of his appearance and the humility of his situa- 



56 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tion, winced at this unthinking sneer, which long rankled in 
his mind. 

As usual, while in Doctor Milner's employ, his benevolent 
feelings were a heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could 
5 resist a tale of distress, and was apt to be fleeced by every 
sturdy beggar; so that, between his charity and his munifi- 
cence, he was generally in advance of his slender salary. 
" You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your 
money," said Mrs. Milner one day, " as I do for some of the 

10 young gentlemen." "In truth, madam, there is equal need!" 
was the good-humored reply. 

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, and 
wrote occasionally for the Monthly Review, of which a 
bookseller, by the name of Griffiths, was proprietor. This 

15 work was an advocate for Whig principles,° and had been in 
prosperous existence for nearly eight years. Of late, however, 
periodicals had multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory 
rival had started up in the Critical Review, published by 
Archibald Hamilton, a bookseller, and aided by the powerful 

20 and popular pen of Dr. Smollett.° Griffiths was obliged to 
recruit his forces. While so doing he met Goldsmith, a hum- 
ble occupant of a seat at Dr. Milner's table, and was struck 
with remarks on men and books, w^iich fell from him in the 
course of conversation. He took occasion to sound him pri- 

25vately as to his inclination and capacity as a reviewer, and 
was furnished by him with specimens of his literary and criti- 
cal talents. They proved satisfactory. The consequence was 
that Goldsmith once more changed his mode of life, and in 
April, 1757, became a contributor to the Monthly Revieiv, 

30 at a small fixed salary, with board and lodging ; and accord- 
ingly took up his abode with Mr. Griffiths, at the sign of the 
Dunciad, Paternoster Row. As usual we trace this phase of 
his fortunes in his semi-fictitious writings ; his sudden trans- 
mutation of the pedagogue into the author being humorously 

35 set forth in the case of "George Primrose" in the Vicar 
of Wakefield. "Come," says George's adviser, "1 see you 
are a lad of spirit and some learning ; what do you think of 
commencing author like me? You have read in books, no 
doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade : at present I'll 



CHAPTER VII 57 

show you forty very dull fellows about town that live by it in 
opulence. All honest, jog-trot men, who go on smoothly and 
dully, and write history and politics, and are praised : men, sir, 
who, had they been bred cobblers, would all their lives only have 
mended shoes, but never made them." " Finding " (says George) 5 
" that there was no great degree of gentility affixed to the char- 
acter of an usher, I resolved to accept his proposal ; and, having 
the highest respect for literature, hailed the antiqua mater of 
Grub Street° with reverence. I thought it my glory to pursue a 
track which Dryden° and Otway° trod before me." Alas, Dry- 10 
den struggled with indigence all his days; and Otway, it is 
said, fell a victim to famine in his thirty-fifth year, being 
strangled by a roll of bread, which he devom'ed with the vorac- 
ity of a starving man. 

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a thorny 15 
one. Griffiths was a hard business-man, of shrewd, worldly 
good sense, but little refinement or cultivation. He meddled 
or rather muddled with literature, too, in a business-way, alter- 
ing and modifying occasionally the writings of his contributors, 
and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according to Smol- 20 
lett, was an antiquated female critic and a dabbler in the 
Review. Such was the literary vassalage to which Gold- 
smith had unwarily subjected himself. A diurnal drudgery 
was imposed on him, irksome to his indolent habits, and at- 
tended by circumstances humiliating to his pride. He had to 25 
write daily from nine o'clock until two, and often throughout 
the day ; whether in the vein or not and on subjects dictated 
by his task-master, however foreign to his taste; in a word, he 
was treated a's a mere literary hack. But this was not the 
worst ; it was the critical supervision of Griffiths and his wife, 30 
which grieved him ; the " illiterate, bookselling Griffiths," as 
Smollett called them, " who presumed to revise, alter, and 
amend the articles contributed to their Beview. Thank 
Heaven," crowed Smollett, " the Critical Review is not written 
under the restraint of a bookseller and his wife. Its principal 35 
writers are independent of each other, unconnected with book- 
sellers, and unawed by old women ! " 

This literary vassalage, however, did not last long. The 
bookseller became more and more exactins:. He accused his 



58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

hack writer of idleness ; of abandoning his writing-desk and 
literary work-shop at an early hour of the day ; and of assum- 
ing a tone and manner above his situation. Goldsmith, in return, 
charged him with impertinence ; his wife, with meanness and 
5 parsimony in her household treatment of him, and both of 
literary meddling and marring. The engagement was broken 
off at the end of five months, by mutual consent, and without 
any violent rupture, as it will be found they afterwards had 
occasional dealings with each other. 

10 Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of age, he 
had produced nothing to give him a decided rep^^tation. He 
was as yet a mere writer for bread. The articles he had con- 
tributed to the Revieio were anonymous, and were never 
avowed by him. They have since been, for the most part, 

15 ascertained ; and though thrown off hastily, often treating on 
subjects of temporary interest, and marred by the Griffiths inter- 
polations, they are still characterized by his sound, easy good 
sense, and the genial graces of his style. Johnson° observed 
that Goldsmith's genius flowered late ; he should have said it 

20 flowered early, but was late in bringing its fruit to maturity. 



CHAPTER yill 



Newbery, of Picture-Book Memory. — How to keep up Appearances. — 
Miseries of Authorship. — A poor Relation. — Letter to Hodson, 

Being now known in the publishing world. Goldsmith began 
to find casual employment in various quarters ; among others 
he wrote occasionally for the Literary Magazine, a produc- 
tion set on foot by Mr. John Newbery, bookseller, St. Paul's 

25 Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature throughout the 
latter half of the last century for his picture-books for children. 
Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted man, and a 
seasonable, though cautious friend to authors, relieving them 
with small loans when in pecuniary difficulties, though always 

30 taking care to be well repaid by the labor of their pens. Gold- 



CHAPTER VIII 59 

smith introduces him in a hmnorous yet friendly manner in his 
novel of the Vicar of WaJceJield. " This person was no other° 
than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, who 
has written so many little books for children; he called himself 
their friend ; but he was the friend of all mankind. He was no 5 
sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone ; for he was ever 
on business of importance, and was at that time actually com- 
piling materials for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip. I 
immediately recollected this good-natured man's red-pimpled 
face." - 10 

Besides his literary job-work, Goldsmith also resumed his 
medical practice, but with very trifling success. The scantiness 
of his purse still obliged him to live in obscure lodgings some- 
where in the vicinity of Salisbury Square, Fleet Street; but 
his extended acquaintance and rising importance caused him 15 
to consult appearances. He adopted an expedient, then very 
common, and still practised in London among those who have 
to tread the narrow path between pride and poverty : while he 
burrowed in lodgings suited to his means, he " hailed," as it is 
termed, from the Temple Exchange Coffee-House° near Temple 20 
Bar.° Here he received his medical calls ; hence he dated his 
letters ; and here he passed much of his leisure hours, convers- 
ing with the frequenters of the place. " Thirty pounds a year," 
said a poor Irish painter, who understood the art of shifting, 
"is enough to enable a man to live in London without being 25 
contemptible. Ten pounds will find him in clothes and linen ; 
he can live in a garret on eighteen pence a week ; hail from a 
coffee-house, where, by occasionally spending threepence, he 
may pass some hours each day in good company ; he may 
breakfast on bread and milk for a penny ; dine for sixpence ; 30 
do without supper ; and on clean-shirt-day he may go abroad 
and pay visits." 

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this poor devil's 
manual in respect to the coffee-house at least. Indeed, coffee- 
houses in those days were the resorts of wits and literati ; where 35 
the topics of the day were gossiped over, and the affairs of 
literature and the drama discussed and criticised. In this way 
he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now embraced 
several names of notoriety. 



60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in this part 
of his career? we have it in his observations on the life of an 
author in the Inquiry into the State of Polite Leai^ning, pub- 
lished some years afterwards. 
5 ' " The author, unpatronized by the great,° has naturally re- 
course to the bookseller. There cannot, perhaps, be imagined 
a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the 
interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and for the 
other to write as much as possible ; accordingly, tedious com- 

lOpilations and periodical magazines are the result of their joint 
endeavors. In these circumstances the author bids adieu to 
fame ; writes for bread and for that only ; imagination is 
seldom called in. He sits down to address the venal Muse 
with the most phlegmatic apathy; and, as we are told of the 

15 Russian, courts his mistress by falling asleep in her lap." 

Again. " Those who are unacquainted with the world are 
apt to fancy the man of wit as leading a very agreeable life. 
They conclude, perhaps, that he is attended with silent admira- 
tion, and dictates to the rest of mankind with all the eloquence 

20 of conscious superiority. Very different is his present situa- 
tion. He is called an author, and all know that an author is 
a thing only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, becomes 
the mirth of the company. At his approach the most fat, un- 
thinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even alder- 

25 men laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was lavished 

on their forefathers The poet's poverty is a standing topic 

of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable offence. 
Perhaps of all mankind, an author in these times is used most 
hardly. We keep him poor, and yet revile his poverty. We 

30 reproach him for living by his wit, and. yet allow him no other 
means to live. His taking refuge in garrets and cellars has of 
late been violently objected to him, and that by men who, I 
have hope, are more apt to pity than insult his distress. Is 
poverty a careless fault ? No doubt he knows how to prefer a 

35 bottle of champagne to the nectar of the neighboring ale-house, 
or a venison pasty to a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy is 
not in him, but in those who deny him the opportunity of mak- 
ing an elegant choice. Wit certainly is the property of those 
who have it, nor should we be displeased if it is the only prop- 



CHAPTER VIII 61 

erfcy a man sometimes has. We must not underrate him who 
uses it for subsistence, and flees from the ingratitude of the age, 
even to a bookseller for redress." . . . 

" If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him with 
proper consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent- 5 
charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public 
he is in all respects; for while so well able to direct others, 
how incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself. His 
simplicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of 
cunning : his sensibility to the slightest invasions of contempt. 10 
Though-possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected 
bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant, 
as to agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken rest, 
tasteless meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life and render 
it unfit for active employments ; prolonged vigils and intense 15 
applications still farther contract his span, and make his time 
glide insensibly away." 

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the difficulties 
and discouragements which in those days beset the path of an 
author, his friends in Ireland received accounts of his literary 20 
success and of the distinguished acquaintances he was making. 
This was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and Bally- 
mahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exaggerated 
notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great man 
in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pictured 25 
him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple and 
fine linen, and hand and glove with the givers of gifts and dis- 
pensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day surprised at 
the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of his younger 
brother Charles, a raw youth of twenty -one, endowed with a 30 
double share of the family heedlessness, and who expected to 
be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to fortune by one or 
other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was sadly disconcerted 
on learning that, so far from being able to provide for others, 
his brother could scarcely take care of himself. He looked 35 
round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters, and could not 
help expressing his surprise and disappointment at finding him 
no better off. " All in good time, my dear boy," replied poor 
Goldsmith, with infinite good-humor; "I shall be richer by-and- 



62 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Cam- 
paign° in a garret in the Haymarket, three stories high, and 
you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to the 
second story." 
5 Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his 
brother in London. With the same roving disposition and 
inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an 
humble capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and 
nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after 

10 having been given up as dead by his friends, he made his 
reappearance in England. 

Shortly after his departure. Goldsmith wrote a letter to his 
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., of which the following 
is an extract; it was partly intended, no doubt, to dissipate 

15 any further illusions concerning his fortunes which might 
float on the magnificent imagination of his friends in Bally- 
mahon : — 

"I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As 
there is nothing in it at which I should blush or which man- 

20 kind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. 
In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very 
little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is 
more apt to introduce us to the gates of the Muses than pov- 
erty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. The 

25 mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company 
to the entertainment ; and want, instead of being gentleman- 
usher, often turns master of the ceremonies. 

" Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I 
starve ; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of 

30 a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to unde- 
ceive my friends. But, whether I eat . or starve, live in a first 
floor or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with 
ardor ; nay, my very country comes in for a share of ray 
affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie 

35 du pais° as the French call it ! Unaccountable that he should 
still have an affection for a place, who never, when in it, re- 
ceived above common civility ; who never brought anything 
out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my 
affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who 



CHAPTER VIII 63 

refused to be cured of the itch because it made him unco'° 
thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary. 

" But, now, to be serious : let me ask myself what gives me 
a wish to see Ireland again. The country is a fine one, per- 
haps V No. There are good company in Ireland ? No. The 5 
conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a 
bawdy song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, 
who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, 
there's more wit and learning among the Irish ? Oh, Lord, 
no ! There has been more money spent in the encouragement 10 
of the -Padareen mare there one season, than given in rewards 
to learned men since the time of Usher.° All their productions 
in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in 
divinity ; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at 
all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland ? Then, all at 15 
once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more who are 
exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. 
This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I 
confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleas- 
ures I at present possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora 20 
Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for 
Lissoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night 
from Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where 
nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess 
it fine ; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount 25 
before Lissoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing- 
horizon in nature. 

" Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found 
refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland. I 
fancied strange revolutions at home ; but I find it was the 30 
rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to 
objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, 
he tells me, are still lean, but very rich ; others very fat, but 
still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you 
sally out in visits among the neighbors, and sometimes make 35 
a migration from the blue bed to the bro^i^n. I could from 
my heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy 
and Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migra- 
tion into Middlesex ; though, upon second thoughts, this might 



64 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

be attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the 
mountain will not come to Mohammed, why Mohanjmed shall 
go to the mountain ; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot 
conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to 

5 be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them 
among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design 
is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contribu- 
tions •, neither to excite envy nor solicit favor; in fact, my 
circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too jDOor to be 

10 gazed at, and too rich to need assistance." 



CHAPTER IX 



Hackney Authorship. — Thoughts of Literary Suicide. — Return to Peck- 
ham. — Oriental Projects. — Literary Enterprise to raise Funds. — 
Letter to Edward Mills; to Robert Bryauton. — Death of Lncle 
Contarine. — Letter to Cousin Jane. 

For some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaneously 
for reviews and other periodical publications, but without mak- 
ing any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed as yet he 
appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary am- 

15 bition, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the 
urgent importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant 
disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, 
had to be scourged up to its task ; still it was this very truant 
disposition which threw an unconscious charm over everything 

20 he wrote; briuging with it honeyed thoughts and pictured 
images which had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours of 
idleness : these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in the exi- 
gency of the moment, were published anonymously; so that 
they made no collective impression on the public, and reflected 

25 no fame on the name of their author. 

In an essay published some time subsequently in the Bee, 
Goldsmith adverts in his own humorous way to his impatience 
at the tardiness with which his desultory and unacknowledged 
essays crept into notice. " I was once induced," says he, " to 



CHAPTER IX 65 

show my indignation against the public by discontinuing my 
efforts to please ; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, ° to 
vex them by burning my manuscripts in a passion. Upon re- 
flection, however, I considered what set or body of people would 
be displeased at my rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident, 5 
might shine next morning as bright as usual; men might laugh 
and sing the next day, and transact business as before ; and not 
a single creature feel any regret but myself. Instead of having 
Apollo in mourning or the Muses in a fit of the spleen; instead 
of having the learned world apostrophizing at my untimely 10 
decease ; perhaps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, and 
self-approving dignity be unable to shield me from ridicule." 

Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new direc- 
tion to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed for 
a brief period the superintendence of the Peckham school, 15 
during a fit of illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in requital 
for his timely services, promised to use his influence with a 
friend, an East-India director," to j)i'ocure him a medical ajD- 
pointment in India. 

There-was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr. 20 
Milner would be effectual; but how was Goldsmith to find the 
ways and means of fitting himself out for a voyage to the 
Indies? In this emergency he was driven to a more extended 
exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His skirmish- 
ing among books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble 25 
among the schools and universities and literati of the Continent, 
had filled his mind with facts and observations which he now 
set about digesting into a treatise of some magnitude, to be 
entitled An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning 
in Europe. As the work grew on his hands, his sanguine 30 
temper ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of success in 
England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of the Irish 
press ; for as yet, the union not having taken place, the Eng- 
lish law of copyright did not extend to the other side of the 
]^ish channel. He wrote, therefore, to his friends in Ireland, 35 
urging them to circulate his proposals for his contemplated 
work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance ; the money 
to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent bookseller in 
Dublin, who would give a receipt for it and be accountable for 



66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the delivery of the books. The letters written by him on this 
occasion are worthy of copious citation as being full of character 
and interest. One was to his relative and college intimate, 
Edward Mills, who had studied for the bar, but was now living ° 
5 at ease on his estate at Roscommon. "You have quitted," 
writes Goldsmith, " the plan of life which you once intended to 
pursue, and given up ambition for domestic tranquillity. I 
cannot avoid feeling some regi-et that one of my few friends 
has declined a pursuit in which he had every reason to expect 

10 success. I have often let my fancy loose when you were the 
subject, and have imagined you gracing the bench, or thunder- 
ing at the bar : while I have taken no small pride to myself, 
and whispered to all that I could come near, that this was my 
cousin. Instead of this, it seems, you are merely contented to 

15 be a happy man; to be esteemed by your acquaintances; to 
cultivate your paternal acres; to take unmolested a nap under 
one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Mills's bedchamber, 
which, even a poet must confess, is rather the more comforta- 
ble place of the two. But, however your resolutions may be 

20 altered with regard to your situation in life, I persuade myself 
they are unalterable with respect to your friends in it. I can- 
not think the world has taken such entire possession of that 
heart (once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a 
corner there for a friend or two, but I flatter myself that even 

25 1 have a place among the number. This I have a claim to 
from the similitude of our dispositions ; or setting that aside, 
I can demand it as a right by the most equitable law of nature : 
I mean that of retaliation ; for indeed you have more than your 
share in mine. I am a man of few professions; and yet at 

30 this very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that 
my present professions (which speak not half my feelings) should 
be considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a re- 
quest to make. No, my dear iJ^ed, I know you are too generous 
to think so, and you know me too proud to stoop to unnecessary 

35 insincerity ; — I have a request, it is tnie, to make; but as I 
know to whom I am petitioner, I make it without diffidence or 
confusion. It is in short this. I am going to publish a book 
in London," &c. The residue of the letter specifies the nature 
of the request, which was merely to aid in circulating his pro- 



CHAPTER IX 67 

posals and obtaining subscriptions. The letter of the poor 
author, however, was unattended to and unacknowledged by 
the prosperous Mr. Mills, of Roscommon, though in after-years 
he was proud to claim relationship to Dr. Goldsmith, when he 
had risen to celebrity. 5 

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton, 
with whom he had long ceased to be in correspondence. " I 
believe," writes he, " that they who are drunk, or out of their 
wits, fancy everybody else in the same condition. Mine is a 
friendship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is 10 
probably the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid 
thinking yours of the same complexion ; and yet I have many 
reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long an 
absence, was I never made a partner in your concerns V To 
hear of your success would have given me the utmost pleasure ; 15 
and a communication of your very disappointments would divide 
the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, my 
dear Bob, you don't, conceive how unkindly you have treated 
one whose circumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, 
except those reflected from the happiness of his friends. How- 20 
ever, since you have not let me hear from you, I have in some 
measure disappointed your neglect b}'" frequently thinking of 
you. Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes of your 
life, from the fireside to the easy-chair ; recall the various adven- 
tures that first cemented our friendship ; the school, the college, 25 
or the tavern ; preside in fancy over your cards ; and am dis- 
pleased at your bad play when the rubber goes against you, 
though not with all that agony of soul as when I was once 
your partner. Is it not strange that two of such like affections 
should be so much separated, and so differently employed as we 30 
are? You seem placed at the centre of fortune's wheel, and, let 
it revolve ever so fast, are insensible of the motion. I seem to 
have been tied to the circumference, and whirled disagreeably 
round, as if on a whirligig." 

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about 35 
his future prospects, the wonderful career of fame and fortune 
that awaits him ; and after indulging in all kinds of humorous 
gasconades, concludes: "Let me, then, stop my fancy to take 
a view of my future self, — and, as the boys say, light down 



68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, 
where the d — 1 is I ? Oh gods ! gods ! here in a garret, writing 
for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score ! " 

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written to his 
5 uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was sunk into a help- 
less hopeless state from which death soon released him. 

Cut of£ thus from the kind cooperation of his uncle, he 
addresses a letter to his daughter Jane, the companion of his 
school-boy and happy days, now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The 

10 object was to secure her interests with her husband in promot- 
ing the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full of 
character. 

" If you should ask," he begins, " why, in an interval of so 
many years, you never heard from me, permit me, madam, to 

15 ask the same question. I have the best excuse in recrimina- 
tion. I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Lou- 
vain in Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. 
To what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or 
forgetfulness ? Whether I was right in my conjecture I do 

20 not pretend to determine ; but this I must ingenuously own, 
that I have a thousand times in my turn endeavored to forget 
them, whom I could not but look upon as forgetting me. I 
have attempted to blot their names from my memory, and, I 
confess it, spent whole days in efforts to tear their image from 

25 my heart. Could I have succeeded, you had not now been 
troubled with this renewal of a discontinued correspondence ; 
but, as every effort the restless make to procure sleep serves but to 
keep them waking, all my attempts contributed to impress what 
I would forget deeper on my imagination. But this subject I 

30 would willingly turn from, and yet, ' for the soul of me,' I can't 
till I have said all. I was, madam, when I discontinued writing 
to Kilmore, in such circumstances, that all my endeavors to 
continue your regards might be attributed to wrong motives. 
My letters might be looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, 

35 and not the offerings of a friend ; while all my professions, 
instead of being considered as the result of disinterested esteem, 
might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I believe, indeed, you 

• had too much generosity to place them in such a light, but I 
could not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. The most 



CHAPTER IX 69 

delicate friendships ' are always most sensible of the slightest 
invasion, and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the 
warmest regard. I could not — I own I could not — continue 
a correspondence in which every acknowledgment for past 
favors might be considered as an indirect request for future 5 
ones; and where it might be thought I gave my heart from a 
motive of gratitude alone, when I was conscious of having be- 
stowed it on much more disinterested principles. It is true, this 
conduct might have been simple enough ; but yourself must 
confess it was in character. Those who know me at all, know 10 
that I have always been actuated by different principles from 
the rest of mankind : and while none regarded the interest of 
his friend more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I 
have often affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flat- 
tery ; have frequently seemed to overlook those merits too 15 
obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to those 
instances of good nature and good sense, which I could not 
fail tacitly to applaud; and all this lest I should be ranked 
among the grinning tribe, who say 'very true* to all that is 
said ; who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table ; whose narrow souls 20 
never moved in a wider circle than the circumference of a 
guinea ; and who had rather be reckoning the money in your 
pocket than the virtue in your breast. All this, I say, I have 
done, and a thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, 
things in my time ; and for all which no soul cares a farthing 25 
about me. ... Is it to be wondered that he should once in 
his life forget you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? 
However, it is probable you may one of these days see me 
turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a 
mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an 30 
entire reform in the state of my finances. I declaim against 
hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and check my grate 
with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, 
I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will 
make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expen- 35 
sive; for I will draw them all out with my own hands, and my 
landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings of my 
black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on a sheet of 
clean paper, and wrote with my best pen ; of which the follow- 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ing will serve as a specimen. Look sharp: Mind the main 
chance : Money is money now : If you have a thousand pounds you 
can put your hands hy your sides, and say you are worth a thousand 
pounds every day of the year: Take a farthing from a hundred 
5 and it icill he a hundred no longer. Thus, which way soever I turn 
my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those friendly monitors ; 
and as we are told of an actor who hung his room round with 
looking-glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartment 
shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of 

10 my mind. Faith ! madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it were 
only for this reason, to say without a blush how much I esteem 
you. But, alas ! I have many a fatigue to encounter before 
that happy time comes, when your poor old simple friend 
may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature ; sitting 

15 by Kilmore fireside, recount the various adventures of a hard- 
fought life ; laugh over the follies of the day ; join his flute to 
your harpsichord ; and forget that ever he starved in those 
streets where Butler'^ and Otway starved before him. And now 
I mention those great names — my Uncle! he is no more that 

20 soul of fire as when I once knew him. [N'ewton and Swift grew 
dim with age as well as he. But what shall I say? His mind 
was too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion 
of its abode ; for the richest jewels soonest wear their settings. 
Yet, who but the fool would lament his condition ! He now f or- 

25 gets the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has given 
him a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which he so well deserves 
hereafter. But I must come to business ; for business, as one of 
my maxims tells me, must be minded or lost. I am agoing to 
publish in London a book entitled The Present State of Taste 

30 and Literature in Europe. The booksellers in Ireland republish 
every performance there without making the author any con- 
sideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint their avarice, 
and have all the profits of my labor to myself. I must, there- 
fore, request Mr. Lawder to circulate among his friends and 

35 acquaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I have given 
the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Dame Street, directions to send 
to him. If, in pursuance of such circulation, he should receive 
any subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they may be sent 
to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid, who will give a receipt, and be 



CHAPTER X 71 

accountable for the work, or a return of the subscription. If 
this request (which, if it be complied with, will in some measure 
be an encouragement to a man of learning) should be disagree- 
able or troublesome, I would not press it ; for I would be the 
last man on earth to have my labors go a-begging ; but if 1 5 
know Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought to know him), he will 
accept the employment with pleasure. All I can say — if he 
writes a book, I will get him two hundred subscribers, and 
those of the best wits in Europe. Whether this request is 
complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy; but there is one 10 
petition t must make to him and to you, which I solicit with 
the warmest ardor, and in which I cannot bear a refusal. I 
mean, dear madam, that I may be allowed to subscribe myself, 
your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, Oliver Gold- 
smith. Now see how I blot and blunder, when I am asking a 15 
favor." 



CHAPTER X 



Oriental Appointment ; and Disappointment. — Examination at the 
College of Surgeons. — How to procure a Suit of Clothes. — 
Fresh Disappointment. — A Tale of Distress. — The Suit of Clothes 
in Pawn. — Punishment for doing an Act of Charity. — Gayeties of 
Green Arbor Court. — Letter to his Brother. — Life of Voltaire. — 
Scroggin, an Attempt at mock-heroic Poetry. 

While Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the 
promise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and 
! he was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the 
I factories on the coast of Coromandel.° His imagination was 20 
immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and mag- 
nificence. It is true the salary did hot exceed one hundred 
pounds, but then, as appointed x^hysician, he would have the 
exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand 
pounds per annum ; with advantages to be derived from trade 25 
and from the high interest of money — twenty per cent. ; in a 
word, for once in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and 
straight before him. 



72 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had 
said nothing of his India scheme; but now he imparted to 
them his brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their 
circulating his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and 
5 advances on his forthcoming work, to f nrnish funds for his 
outfit. 

In the mean time he had to task that poor drudge, his 
Muse, for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for 
his appointment-warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon 

10 him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his liter- 
ary capability was known to " the trade," and the coinage of 
his brain passed current in Grub Street. Archibald Hamilton, 
proprietor of the Critical Review, the rival to that of Grif- 
fiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three 

15 articles for his periodical. His purse thus slenderly replen- 
ished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant ; wiped off the score of 
his milkmaid ; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby 
first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey ; there to 
await the time of his migration to the magnificent coast of 

20 Coromandel. 

Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! ever doomed to disappointment. 
Early in the gloomy month of November, that month of fog 
and despondency in London, he learnt the shipwreck of his 
hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through ; or 

25 rather the post promised to him was transferred to some 
other candidate. The cause of this disappointment it is now 
impossible to ascertain. The death of his quasi patron. Dr. 
Mihier, which happened about this time, may have had some 
effect in producing it; or there may have been some heedless- 

30 ness and blundering on his own part ; or some obstacle arising 
from his insuperable indigence ; — whatever may have been 
the cause, he never mentioned it, which gives some ground to 
surmise that he himself was to blame. His friends learnt 
with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished his appoint- 

35 ment to India, about which he had raised such sa,nguine ex- 
pectations : some accused him of fickleness and caprice ; others 
supposed him unwilling to/ tear himself from the growing 
fascinations of the literary society of London. 

In the mean time, cut down in his hopes, and humiliated in 



CHAPTER X 73 

his pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, 
without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College 
of Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even 
here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in 
a decent garb before the examining committee; but how was 5 
he to do so ? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of 
cash. Here again the Muse, so often jilted and neglected by 
him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles fur- 
nished to the Monthly Review, Griffiths, his old task-master, 
was to become his securit}^ to the tailor for a suit of clothes. 10 
Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, upon 
which depended his appointment to a situation in the army ; 
as soon as that temporary purpose was served they would 
either be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed 
were accordingly lent to him ; the Muse was again set to her 15 
compulsory drudgery ; the articles were scribbled off and sent 
to the bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the 
tailor. 

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears 
that Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall, 20 
on the 21st of December 1758. Either from a confusion of 
mind incident to sensitive and imaginative persons on such 
occasions, or from a real want of surgical science, which last 
is extremely probable, he failed in his examination and was 
rejected as unqualified. The effect of such a rejection was to 25 
disqualify him for every branch of public service, though he 
might have claimed a reexamination, after the interval of a 
few months devoted to further study. Such a reexamination 
he never attempted, nor did he ever communicate his discom- 
fiture to any of his friends. 30 

On Christmas-Day, but four days after his rejection by the 
College of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortifi- 
cation of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for 
means of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into 
his room of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched 35 
apartment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. 
She had a piteous tale of distress, and w^as clamorous in her 
afflictions. Her husband had been arrested in the night for 
debt, and thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick 



74 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

feelings of Goldsmith ; he was ready at any time to help the 
distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some measure a 
cause of the distress. What was to be done ? He had no money, 
it is true ; but there hung the new suit of clothes in which he 
5 had stood his unlucky examination at Surgeons' Hall. With- 
out giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off to the 
pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a sufficient sum to pay off his 
own debt, and to release his landlord from prison. 

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he 

10 borrow^ed from a neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate 
wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently 
review^ed. In the midst of these straits and harassmt ...,, x^c 
received a letter from Griffiths, demanding, in peremptory 
terms, the return of the clothes and books, or immediate pay- 

15 ment for the same. It appears that he had discovered the 
identical suit at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is 
not known ; it was out of his power to furnish either the .clothes 
or the money ; but he probably offered once more to make the 
Muse stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of the 

20 wealthy man of trade, and drew from him another letter still 
more harsh than the flirst; using the epithets of knave and 
sharper, and containing threats of prosecution and a prison. 

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most 
touching picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, 

25 harassed by care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost 
to despondency: — 

"Sir, — I know of no misery but a jail to which my own 
imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it 
ijievitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request 

30 it as a favor — as a favor that may prevent something more 
fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched 
being — with all that contempt that indigence brings with it — 
with all those passions w^hich make contempt insupportable. 
What, then, has a jail that is formidable ? I shall at least have 

35 the society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell 
you, again and again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay 
you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you 
or the tailor shall make ; thus far, at least, I do not act the 



CHAPTER X 75 

sharper, since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would 
generally give some security another. No, sir ; had I been a 
sharper — had I been possessed of less good-nature and 
native generosity, I might surely now have been in better 
circumstances. 5 

"I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoid- 
ably brings with it : my reflections are filled with repentance 
for ray imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a 
villain: that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. 
Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but 10 
in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged 
me to borrow some money : whatever becomes of my person, 
you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the 
reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have 
brought you false information with respect to my character ; 15 
it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with 
detestation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It 
is very possible that, upon a second perusal of the letter I sent 
you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated with 
gratitude and jealousy. If such circumstances should appear, 20 
at least spare invective till my book with Mr. Dodslej'^ shall be 
published, and then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a 
mind, when my professions shall not appear the dictates of 
necessity, but of .choice. 

"You seem to think Dr. Milner knew^ me not. Perhaps so; 25 
but he was a man I shall ever honor ; but I have friendships 
only with the dead ! I ask pardon for taking up so much time ; 
nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am, 
sir, your humble servant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 30 

" p. S. — I shall expect impatiently the result of your 
resolutions." 

The dispute between the poet and the publisher was after- 
ward imperfectly adjusted, and it would appear that the clothes 
were paid for by a short compilation advertised by Griffiths in 35 
the course of the following month ; but the parties were never 
really friends afterward, and the writings of Goldsmith were 
harshly and unjustly treated in the Monthly Review. 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnishing 
one of the many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt and 
benevolent impulses outran all prudent forecast, and involved 
him in difficulties and disgraces which a more selfish man would 
5 have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged upon him 
as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently admitted 
by him as one of " the meannesses which poverty unavoidably 
brings with it," resulted, as we have shown, from a tenderness 
of heart and generosity of hand, in which another man would 

10 have gloried ; but these were such natural elements with him, 
that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity that wealth 
does not oftener bring such " meannesses " in its train. 

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these 
lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act 

15 of benevolence. They were in a very shabby house, No. 12 
Green Arbor Court, between the Old Bailey° and Fleet Market. 
An old woman was still living in 1820 who was a relative of 
the identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money 
received from the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven 

20 years of age at the time that the poet rented his apartment of 
her relative, and used frequently to be at the house in Green 
Arbor Court. She was drawn there, in a great measure, by the 
good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always exceed- 
ingly fond of the society of children, tie used to assemble 

25 those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweet- 
meats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He was 
very friendly to those around him, and cultivated a kind of in- 
timacy with a watchmaker in the Court, who possessed much 
native wit and humor. He passed most of the day, however, in 

30 his room, and only went out in the evenings. His days were 
no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and it would 
appear that he occasionally found the booksellers urgent task- 
masters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up to his room, 
and immediately their voices were heard in high altercation, 

35 and the key was turned within the lock. The landlady, at first, 
was disposed to go to the assistance of her lodger ; but a calm 
succeeding, she forbore to interfere. 

Late in the evening the door was unlocked; a supper ordered 
by the visitor from a neighboring tavern, and Goldsmith and 



CHAPTER X 77 

his intrusive guest finished the evening in great good-humor. 
It was probably his old task -master Griffiths, whose press might 
have been waiting, and who found no other mode of getting a 
stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him in, and 
staying by him until it was finished. 5 

But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in 
Green Arbor Court from the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward 
Bishop of Dromore, and celebrated for his relics of ancient 
poetry, his beautiful ballads, and other works. During an oc- 
casional visit to London, he was introduced to Goldsmith by 10 
Grainger, and ever after continued one. of his most steadfast 
and valued friends. The following is his description of the 
poet's squalid apartment : " I called on Goldsmith at his lodg- 
ings in March, 1759, and found him writing his Inquiry, in a 
miserable, dirty-looking room, in which there was but one 15 
chair ; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he himself 
was obliged to sit in the window. While we were conversing 
together, some one tapped gently at the door, and, being desired 
to come in, a poor ragged little girl, of a very becoming de- 
meanor, entered the room, and, dropping a courtesy, said, 20 
' My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favor of you 
to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' " 

We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture 
of the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the 
secrets of a make-shift establishment given to a visitor by the^l 
blundering old Scotch woman. 

" By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would 
permit us ta ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously 
pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and, knocking 
at the door, a voice from within demanded ' Who's there ? ' My 30 
conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying 
the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which he 
answered louder than before ; and now the door was opened by 
an old woman with cautious reluctance. 

" When we got in, he welcomed me to his house with great 35 
ceremony; and, turning to the old woman, asked where was her 
lady. ' Good troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect, ' she's 
washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they have 
taken an oath against lending the tub any longer.' 'My 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

two shirts,' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confusion ; 
' what does the idiot mean ? ' 'I ken what I mean weel enough,' 
replied the other ; ' she's washing your twa shirts at the next 
door, because' — 'Fire and fury ! no more of thy stupid ex- 
5 planations,' cried he ; 'go and inf oi-m her we have company. 
Were that Scotch hag to be forever in my family, she would 
never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent 
of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high 
life ; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a Par- 

lOliament man, a friend of mine from the Highlands, one of the 
politest men in the world ; but that's a secret.' " ^ 

Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a place conse- 
crated by the genius and the poverty of Goldsmith, but recently 
obliterated in the course of modern improvements. The writer of 

15 this memoir visited it not many years since on a literary pil- 
grimage, and may be excused for repeating a description of 
it which he has heretofore inserted in another publication. " It 
then existed in its pristine state, and was a small square of tall 
and miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed 

20 turned inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery 
that fluttered from every window. It appeared to be a region 
of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the little 
square, on which clothes were dangling to dry. 

" Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between 

25 two viragoes about a disputed right to a wash-tub, and immedi- 
ately the whole community was in a hubbub. Heads in mob- 
caps popped out of every window, and such a clamor of tongues 
ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every amazon took 
part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished her 

30 arms, dripping with soapsuds, and fired away from her window 
as from the embrasure of a fortress ; while the screams of chil- 
dren nestled and cradled in every procreant chamber of this 
hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill pipes to swell 
the general concert." ^ 

35 While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under extreme 
depression of spirits, caused by his failure at Surgeons' Hall, 
the disappointment of his hopes, and his harsh collisions with 

1 Citizen of the World, letter iv. ^ Tales of a Traveller. 



CHAPTER X 79 

Griffiths, Goldsmith wrote the following letter to his brother 
Henry, some parts of which are most touchingly mournful. 

" Deak Sir, — 

"Your punctuality in answering a man whose trade is writ- 
ing, is more than T had reason to expect ; and yet you see me 5 
generally fill a whole sheet, which is all the recompense I can 
make for being so frequently troublesome. The behavior of 
Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. However, 
their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient indication 
of theij disliking the employment which I assigned them. As 10 
their conduct is different from what I had expected, so I have 
made an alteration in mine. I shall, the beginning of next 
month, send over two hundred and fifty books,i which are all 
that I fancy can be well sold among you, and I would have you 
make some distinction in the persons who have subscribed. 15 
The money, which will amount to sixty pounds, may be left 
with Mr. Bradley as soon as possible. I am not certain but I 
shall quickly have occasion for it. 

" I have met with no disappointment with respect to my East 
India voyage, nor are my resolutions altered; though, at the 20 
same time, I must confess, it gives me some pain to think I am 
almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. Though 
I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that 
strong, active man you once knew me. You scarcely can con- 
ceive how much eight years of disapxDointment, anguish, and 25 
study have worn me down. If I remember right, you are 
seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare venture to say, 
that, if a stranger saw us both, he would pay me the honors 
of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, 
with two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, with an eye 30 
disgustingly severe, and a big wig, and you may have a perfect 
picture of my present appearance. On the other hand, I con- 
ceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a happy 
day among your own children, or those who knew you a child. 

" Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure 1 35 
have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of 

1 The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His previous remarks apply to 
the subscription. 



80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

cool, designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious 
manner in my own behavior. I should actually be as unfit for 
the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am 
obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of the 
5 pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. I can 
neither laugh nor drink ; have contracted a hesitating, dis- 
agreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill- 
nature itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled 
melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with 

10 it. Whence this romantic turn that all our family are pos- 
sessed with ? Whence this love for every place and every 
country but that in which we reside — for every occupation 
but our own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness to 
dissipate? I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals for 

15 indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, 
regardless of yours. 

" The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son 
a scholar are judicious and convincing ; I should, however, be 
glad to know for what particular profession he is designed. 

20 If he be assiduous and divested of strong passions (for pas- 
sions in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do very well 
in your college; for it must be owned that the industrious 
poor have good encouragement there, perhaps better than in 
any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, 

25 and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him 
there, unless you have no other trade for him but your own. 
It is impossible to conceive how much may be done by proper 
education at home. A boy, for instance, who understands per- 
fectly well Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of the 

30 civil law, and can write a fine hand, has an education that may 
qualify him for any undertaking ; and these parts of learning 
should be carefully inculcated, let him be designed for what- 
ever calling he will. 

"Above all things, let him never touch a romance or novel: 

35 these paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and 
describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how 
destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss! They 
teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness 
that never existed; to despise the little good which fortune 



CHAPTER X 81 

has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave ,° 
and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen the 
world, and who has studied human nature more by experience 
than precept; take my word for it, I say, that books teach 
us very little of the w^orld. The greatest merit in a state of 5 
poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous — 
may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even 
avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. 
These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. 
Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let 10 
his poi?r wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. 
I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, 
before I was taught from experience the necessity of being- 
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philos- 
opher, while I was exposing myself to the approaches of insid- 15 
ious cunning ; and often by being, even with my narrow finances, 
charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed 
myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for 
my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the world, tell 
him this, and perhaps he may improve from my example. But 20 
I find myself again falling into my gloomy habits of thinking. 

" My mother, I am informed, is almost blind ; even though I 
had the utmost inclination to return home, under such circum- 
stances I could not, for to behold her in distress without a 
capacity of relieving her from it, would add much to my splene- 25 
tic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it should have 
answered some queries I had made in my former. Just sit 
down as I do, and write forward until you have filled all your 
paper. It requires no thought, at least from the ease with 
which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed to you. 30 
For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write ; my heart 
dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bryanton, and 
entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir, give me some 
account about poor Jenny.^ Yet her husband loves her : if so, 
she cannot be unhappy. 35 

"I know not whether I should tell you — yet why should I 
conceal these trifles, or, indeed, anything from you ? There is 

1 His sister, Mrs. Johnston ; her marriage, fike that of Mrs. Hodson, 
was private, but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate. 



82 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

St. book of mine will be published in a few days : the life of a 
very extraordinary man ; no less than the great Voltaire. You 
know already by the title that it is no more than a catchpenny. 
However, I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for 
5 which I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take 
some method of conveying it to you, unless you may think it 
dear of the postage,^ which may amount to four or five shil- 
lings. However, I fear you will not find an equivalent of 
amusement. 

10 " Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; you should have 
given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem 
which I sent you. You remember I intended to introduce the 
hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale-house. You may take 
the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is 

15 quite original. The room in which he lies may be described 
somewhat in this way : — 

'* ' The window, patched with paper, lent a ray 
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, 

20 The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ; 

The game of goose was there exposed to view, 
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ;° 
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place, 
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp-black face. 

25 The morn was cold : he views with keen desire^ 

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire ; 
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, 
And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney-board.' 

" And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make 
30 his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning : — 

" ' Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay : 
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man, 
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' &c.i 

35 " All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark 
of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends with 
whom they da not care how much they play the fool. Take 

1 The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears 
never to have been completed. 



CHAPTER X 83 

my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is a mnch 
easier and more agreeable species of composition than prose; 
and, could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment 
to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, though I should 
fill it up only by telling you, what you very well know already, 5 
I mean that I am your most affectionate friend and brother 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the pre- 
ceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the 
demands of Griffiths. It was to have preceded a translation 10 
of the JIenriarle° by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, 
now a Grub-Street writer, who starved rather than lived by the 
exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's scanty means 
to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was summed up by 
our poet in the following lines written some years after the 15 
time we are treating of, on hearing that he had suddenly 
dropped dead in Smithfield : — 

" Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, 
Who long was a bookseller's hack ; 
He led such a damnable life in this world, 20 

I don't think he'll wish to come back." 

The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a vol- 
ume, were not published together, but appeared separately in a 
magazine. 

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing 25 
letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been 
brought to maturity, we should have had further traits of auto- 
biography : the room already described was probably his own 
squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court ; and in a subsequent 
morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the 30 
euphonious name of Scroggin : — 

"Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigne 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane : 35 

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug ; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 
A cap by night, a stocking all the day! " 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

It is to be regretted, that this poetical conception was not 
carried out ; like the author's other M^ritings, it might have 
abounded with pictures of life and touches of nature drawn 
from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by his 
5 own humane and tolerant spirit ; and might have been a worthy 
companion or rather contrast to his Traveller and Deserted 
Village, and have remained in the language a first-rate speci- 
men of the mock-heroic. 



CHAPTER XI 



Publication of The Inquiry. — Attack by Griffiths' Review. — Kenrick 
the Literary IslimaeUte. —Periodical Literature. — Goldsmith's Assays. 
— Garrick as a Manager. — Smollett aud his Schemes. — Change of 
Lodgings. — The Eobin Hood Club. 

Towards the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which 

10 Goldsmith had laid so much stress, on which he at one time 
had calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, and 
to which he had adverted in his correspondence with Griffiths, 
made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and 
entitled An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning 

15 in Europe. 

In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary 
literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and when 
the current productions of every country are constantly collated 
and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith would be 

20 considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory ; but at that 
time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness in its scope, 
and being imbued with the peculiar charm of style inseparable 
from the author, it commanded public attention and a profitable 
sale. As it was the most important production that had 

25 yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to have the 
credit of it; yet it appeared without his name on the title-page. 
The authorship, however, was well known throughout the world 
of letters, and the author had now grown into sufficient literary 



CHAPTER XI 85 

importance to become an object of hostility to the underlings of 
the press. One of the most virulent attacks upon him was in 
a criticism on this treatise, and appeared in the Monthly Re- 
vieiv to which he himself had been recently a contributor. It 
slandered him as a man while it decried him as an author, and 5 
accused him, by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of 
having, by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all preten- 
sions to honor and honesty," and of practising " those acts 
which bring the sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory." 

It will be remembered that the Review was owned by Griffiths 10 
the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently had a mjs- 
understaniding. The criticism, therefore, was no doubt dictated 
by the lingerings of resentment ; and the imputations upon 
Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, and the vile and 
mean actions hinted at, could only allude to the unfortunate 15 
pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was after Griffiths had 
received the affecting letter from Goldsmith, drawing a picture 
of his poverty and perplexities, and after the latter had made 
him a literary compensation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of 
the falsehood and extravagance of the attack, and tried to ex- 20 
onerate himself by declaring that the criticism was written by 
a person in his employ ; but we see no difference in atrocity be- 
tween him who wields the knife and him who hires the cut- 
throat. It may be well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite 
of notoriety upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He 25 
deserves it for a long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, 
not merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the successful 
authors of the day. His name was Kenrick. He was originally 
a mechanic, but possessing some degree of talent and industry, 
applied himself to literature as a profession. This he pursued for 30 
many years, and tried his hand in every department of prose 
and poetry; he wrote plays and satires, philosophical tracts, 
critical dissertations, and works on philology; nothing from his 
pen ever rose to first-rate excellence, or gained him a popular 
name, though he received from some university the degree of 35 
Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson characterized his literary career 
in one short sentence. " Sir, he is one of the many who have 
made themselves /?M^>//c without making themselves known." 

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success of 



86 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

others, his natural irritability of temper increased by habits of 
intemperance, he at length abandoned himself to the practice 
of reviewing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of the press.° 
In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him a notoriety 
5 which his talents had never been able to attain. We shall dis- 
miss him for the present with the following sketch of him by 
the hand of one of his contemporaries : — 

" Dreaming of genius° which he never had, 
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad ; 

10 Seizing, Uke Shirley, on the poet's lyre, 

With all his rage, but not one spark of fire ; 
Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear 
From others' brows that wreath he must not wear — 
Next Kenrick came : all furious and replete 

15 With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit ; 

Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind 
To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined : 
For faults alone behold the savage prowl, 
With reason's offal glut his ravening soul ; 

20 Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks. 

And mumbles, paws, and turns it — till it stinks." 

The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful 
of periodical publications.^ That " oldest inhabitant," the 
Gentleman's Magazine, almost coeval with St. John's gate which 

25 graced its title-page, had long been elbowed by magazines and 
reviews of all kinds : Johnson's Rambler had introduced the 
fashion of periodical essays, which he had followed up in his 
Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up on every side, 
under every variety of name ; until British literature was en- 

30 tirely overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. Many 
of these rival periodicals choked each other almost at the out- 
set, and few of them have escaped oblivion. 

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as the 
Bee, the Busy-Body, and the Lady's Magazine. His essays, 

35 though characterized by his delightful style, his pure, benevo- 
lent morality, and his mellow, unobtrusive humor, did not pro- 
duce equal effect at first with more garish writings of infinitely 
less value ; they did not " strike," as it is termed ; but they had 
that rare and enduring merit which rises in estimation on every 

40 perusal. They gradually stole upon the heart of the public, 



CHAPTER XI " 87 

were copied into numerous contemporary publications, and now 
they are garnered up among the choice productions of British 
literature. 

In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith 
had given offence to David Garrick, at that time autocrats 
of the drama, and was doomed to experience its effect. A 
clamor had been raised against Garrick for exercising a despot- 
ism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old plays 
to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole° joined in this 
charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as it de-10 
serves and likes to be treated, — with scenes, fire-works, and 
his own foritings. A good new play I never expect to see more ; 
nor have seen since the Provoked Husband, which came out 
when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was extremely fond of 
the theatre, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed in his 15 
treatise against the wrongs experienced by authors at the 
hands of managers. " Our poet's performance," said he, 
"must undergo a process truly chemical before it is presented 
to the public. It must be tried in the manager's fire; strained 
through a licenser, suffer from repeated corrections, till it ma3^20 
be a mere caput mortuum when it arrives before the public." 
Again, — " Getting a play on even in three or four years is a 
privilege reserved only for the happy few who have the arts 
of courting the manager as well as the Muse; who have adula- 
tion to please his vanity, powerful patrons to support their 25 
merit, or money to indemnify disappointment. Our Saxon 
ancestors had but one name for a wit and a witch. I will 
not dispute the propriety of uniting those characters then ; but 
the man who under present discouragements ventures to write 
for the stage, whatever claim he may have, to the appellation 30 
of a wit, at least has no right to be called a conjurer." But a 
passage which perhaps touched more sensibly than all the rest 
on the sensibilities of Garrick, was the following : — 

"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps 
the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his 35 
train. It were a matter of indifference to me, whether our 
heroines are in keeping, or our candle-snuffers burn their 
fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and 
polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the 



88 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

stage which they do on it; and, to use an expression borrowed 
from the green-room, every one is up in his part. I am sorry 
to say it, they seem to forget their real characters." 

These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for 
5 himself, and they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith 
waited upon him and solicited his vote for the vacant secre- 
taryship of the Society of Arts,° of which the manager was a 
member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his 
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his 

10 budding reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient 
importance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he 
observed that he could hardly expect his friendly exertions 
after the unprovoked attack he had made upon his manage- 
ment. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no person- 

15 alities, and had only spoken what he believed to be the truth. 
He made no further apology nor application; failed to get 
the appointment, and considered Garrick his enemy. In the 
second edition of his treatise he expunged or modified the pas- 
sages which had given the manager offence ; but though the 

20 author and actor became intimate in after years, this false step 
at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten. 

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who 
was about to launch the British Magazine. Smollett was a com- 
plete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon 

25 enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view. 
Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one 
of his papers in the Bee, in which he represents Johnson, Hume, 
and others taking seats in the stage-coach bound for Fame, 
while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches. 

30 Another promitjent employer of Goldsmith was Mr. John 
Xewbery, who engaged him to contribute occasional essays 
to a newspaper entitled the Public Ledger, which made its 
first appearance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most valu- 
able and characteristic contributions to this paper were his 

35 Chinese Letters subsequently modified into the Citizen of the 
World. These lucubrations attracted general attention; they 
were reprinted in the various periodical publications of the day, 
and met with great applause. The name of the author, how- 
ever, was as yet but little known. 



CHAPTER XII 89 

Being now easier in circumstances, and in the receipt of 
frequent sums from the booksellers, Goldsmith, about the 
middle of 1760, emerged from his dismal abode in Green 
Arbor Court, and took respectable apartments in Wine-Office 
Court, Fleet Street. 5 

Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence 
to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by pawn- 
ing his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her 
with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with 
the sole purpose to be kind to her." 10 

He now became a member of a debating club called the 
Robin Hood, which used to meet near Temple Bar, and in 
which Burke, while yet a Temple student, had first tried his 
powers. Goldsmith spoke here occasionally, and is recorded in 
the Robin Hood archives as " a candid disputant with a clear 15 
head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to the 
society." His relish was for clubs of a more social, jovial 
nature, and he was never fond of argument. An amusing 
anecdote is told of his first introduction to the club, by Samuel 
Derrick, an Irish acquaintance of some humor. On entering, 20 
Goldsmith was struck with the self-important appearance of 
the chairman ensconced in a large gilt chair. " This," said he, 
"must be the Lord Chancellor at least." "No, no," replied 
Derrick, "he's only master of the rolls." — The chairman was 
a baker. 25 



CHAPTER Xn 



New Lodgings. — Visits of Ceremony. — Hangers-on. — Pilkington and 
the White Mouse. — Introduction to Dr. Johnson. — Da vies and his 
Bookshop. — Pretty Mrs. Davies. — Foote and his Projects. — 
Criticism of the Cudgel. 

In his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Goldsmith began 
to receive visits of ceremony, and to entertain his literary 
friends. Among the latter he now numbered several names 
of note, such as Guthrie,° Murphy,° Christopher Smart,° and 



90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Bickerstaff.° He had also a numerous class of hangers-on, the 
small fry of literature ; who, knowing his almost utter incapa- 
city to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, now that he was 
considered flash, to levy continual taxes upon his purse. 

5 Among" others, one Pilkington, an old college acquaintance, 
but now a shifting adventurer, duped him in the most ludicrous 
manner. He called on him with a face full of perplexity. A 
lady of the first rank having an extraordinary fancy for curious 
animals, for which she was willing to give enormous sums, he 

10 had procured a couple of white mice to be forwarded to her 
from India. They were actually on board of a ship iu the river. 
Her grace had been apprised of their arrival, and was all impa- 
tience to see them. Unfortunately he had no cage to put them 
in, nor clothes to appear in before a lady of her rank. Two 

15 guineas would be sufficient for his purpose, but where were two 
guineas to be procured ! 

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched ; but, alas ! he 
had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was unfortunate, but, 
after a pause, his friend suggested, with some hesitation, " that 

20 money might be raised upon his watch : it would but be the 
loan of a few hours." So said, so done ; the watch was deliv- 
ered to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a neighbor- 
ing pawnbroker's, but nothing farther was ever seen of him, the 
watch,, or the white mice. The next that Goldsmith heard of 

25 the poor shifting scapegrace, he was on his death-bed, starving 
with want, upon which, forgetting or forgiving the trick he had 
played upon him, he sent him a guinea. Indeed he used often 
to relate with great humor the foregoing anecdote of his credu- 
lity, and was ultimately in some degree indemnified by its sug- 

30 gesting to him the amusing little story of Prince Bonbennin and 
the White Mouse in the Citizen of the World. 

In this year Goldsmith became personally acquainted with 
Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was drawn by strong sympathies, 
though their natures were widely different. Both had struggled 

35 from early life with poverty, but had struggled in different 
ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, tolerant of 
evils, and easily pleased, had shifted along by any temporary 
expedient ; cast down at every turn, but rising again with in- 
domitable good-humor, and still carried forward by his talent 



CHAPTER XII 91 

at hoping. Johnson, melancholy, and hypochondriacal, and 
prone to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to battle with 
and conquer it, had made his way doggedly and gloomily, but 
with a noble principle of self-reliance and a disregard of foreign 
aid. Both had been irregular at college : Goldsmith, as we 5 
have shown, from the levity of his nature and his social and 
convivial habits ; Johnson, from his acerbity and gloom. When, 
in after-life, the latter heard himself spoken of as gay and frolic- 
some at college, because he had joined in some riotous excesses 
there, " Ah, sir! " replied he, " I was mad and violent. It was 10 
bitterness which they mistook for frolic. / luas miserably poor, 
and I thought to fight my way hy my literature and my wit. So 
I disregarded all power and all authority." 

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by bitterness ; 
but neither was it accompanied by the guardian pride which 15 
kept Johnson from falling into the degrading shifts of poverty. 
Goldsmith had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and helping 
himself along by the contributions of his friends; no doubt 
trusting in his hopeful way, of one day making retribution. 
Johnson never hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his 20 
sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he could not master. In 
his youth, when some unknown friend, seeing his shoes com- 
pletely worn out, left a new pair at his chamber-door, he dis- 
dained to accept the boon, and threw them away. 

Though like Goldsmith an immethodical student, he had im- 25 
bibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and made himself a riper 
scholar. While Goldsmith's happy constitution and genial 
humors carried him abroad into sunshine and enjoyment, John- 
son's physical infirmities and mental gloom drove him upon 
himself ; to the resources of reading and meditation ; threw a 30 
deeper though darker enthusiasm into his mind, and stored a 
retentive memory with all kinds of knowledge. 

After several years of youth passed in the country as usher, 
teacher, and an occasional writer for the press, Johnson, when 
twenty-eight years of age, came up to London with a half-writ- 35 
ten tragedy in his pocket ; and David Garrick, late his pupil, 
and several years his junior, as a companion, both poor and pen- 
niless, — both, like Goldsmith, seeking their fortune in the 
metropolis. "We rode and tied," said Garrick sportively in 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

after years of prosperity, when he spoke of their humble way- 
faring. " I came to London," said Johnson, " with twopence 
halfpenny in my pocket." — "Eh, what's that you say?" 
cried Garrick, " with twopence halfpenny in your pocket ? " 
5 " Why, yes : I came with twopence halfpenny in my pocket, 
and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine." Nor 
was there much exaggeration in the picture ; for so poor were 
they in purse and credit, that after their arrival they had, with 
difficulty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a book- 

10 seller in the Strand. 

Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely in London, 
" fighting his way by his literature and his wit; " enduring all 
the hardships and miseries of a Grub-Street writer : so destitute 
at one time, that he and Savage° the poet had walked all night 

15 about St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a night's 
lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and determined 
to stand by their country ; so shabby in dress at another time, 
that, when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller, when there was 
prosperous company, he could not make his appearance at 

20 table, but had his dinner handed to him behind a screen. 

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased 

in mind as well as in body, he had been resolutely self-dependent, 

and proudly self-respectful ; he had fulfilled his college vow, 

he had " fought his way by his literature and his wit." His 

25 Rambler and Idler had made him the great moralist of the 
age, and his Dictionary and History of the English Language, 
that stupendous monument of individual labor, had excited 
the admiration of the learned world. He was now at the head 
of intellectual society; and had become as distinguished by 

30 his conversational as his literary powers. He had become as 
much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow-wayfarer and 
adventui^er Garrick had become of the stage, and had been hu- 
morously dubbed by Smollett, " The Great Cham of Literature." 
Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 1761, he 

35 was to make his appearance as a guest at a literary supper 
given by Goldsmith to a numerous party at his new lodgings 
in Wine-Office Court. It was the opening of their acquaint-; 
ance. Johnson had felt and acknowledged the merit of Gold- 
smith as an author, and been pleased by the honorable] 



CHAPTER XII 93 

mention made of himself in the Bee and the Chinese Letters. 
Dr. Percy called upon Johnson to take him to Goldsmith's 
lodgings; he found Johnson arrayed with unusual care in a 
new suit of clothes, a new hat, and a well-powdered wig ; and 
could not but notice his uncommon spruceness. " Why, sir," 5 
replied Johnson, " I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great 
sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by 
quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him 
a better example." 

The acquaintance thus commenced ripened into intimacy in 10 
the course of frequent meetings at the shop of Davies, the 
bookselier, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. As this was one 
of the great literary gossiping-places of the day, especially to 
the circle over which Johnson presided, it is worthy of some 
specification. Mr. Thomas Davies, noted in after-times as the 15 
biographer of Garrick, had originally been on the stage, and 
though a small man, had enacted tyi'annical tragedy with a 
pomp and magniloquence beyond his size, if we may trust the 
description given of him by Churchill in the Rosciad° : — 

" Statesman all over — in plots famous grown, 20 

He mouths a sentence as cu7's mouth a bone." 

This unlucky sentence is said to have crippled him in the 
midst of his tragic career, and ultimately to have driven him 
from the stage. He carried into the bookselling craft some- 
what of the grandiose manner of the stage, and was prone to 25 
be mouthy and magniloquent. 

Churchill had intimated, that while on the stage he was 
more noted for his prett}^ wife than his good acting: — 

" With him came mighty Davies ; on my life, 
That fellow has a very pretty wife." 30 

" Pretty Mrs. Davies " continued to be the loadstar of his 
fortunes. Her tea-table became almost as much a literary 
lounge as her husband's shop. She found favor in the eyes of 
the Ursa Major of literature by her winning ways, as she 
poured out for him cups without stint of his favorite beverage. 35 
Indeed it is suggested that she was one leading cause of his 
habitual resort to this literary haunt. Others were drawn 



94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

thither for the sake of Johnson's conversation, and thus it 
became a resort of many of the notorieties of the day. Here 
might occasionally be seen Bennet Langton, George Steevens, 
Dr. Percy, celebrated for his ancient ballads, and sometimes 
5 Warburton in prelatic state. Garrick resorted to it for a time, 
but soon grew shy and suspicious, declaring that most of the 
authors who frequented Mr. Davie s's shop went merely to 
abuse him. 

Foote, the Aristophanes^ of the day, was a frequent visitor ; 

10 his broad face beaming with fun and waggery, and his satirical 
eye ever on the lookout for characters and incidents for his 
farces. He was struck with the odd habits and appearance of 
Johnson and Goldsmith, now so often brought together in 
Davies's shop. He was about to put on the stage a farce called 

15 The Orators, intended as a hit at the Robin Hood debating- 
club, and resolved to show up the two doctors in it for the 
entertainment of the town. 

" What" is the common price of an oak stick, sir? " said Johnson 
to Davies. " Sixpence," was the reply. " Why then, sir, give 

20 me leave to send your servant to purchase a shilling one. I'll 
have a double quantity, for I am told Foote means to take me 
off as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do 
it with impunity." 

Foote had no disposition to undergo the criticism of the 

25 cudgel wielded by such potent hands, so the farce of The 
Orators appeared without the caricatures of the lexicographer 
and tlie essayist. 



CHAPTER Xni 

Oriental Projects. — Literary Jobs. — The Cherokee Chiefs. — Merry 
Islington and the White Condnit House. — Letters on the History 
of England. — James Boswell. — Dinner of Davies. — Anecdotes of 
Johnson and Goldsmith. 

"N'oTwiTHSTANDiNG his growiug success, Goldsmith continued 

to consider literature a mere makeshift, and his vagrant imagi- 

30 nation teemed with schemes and plans of a grand but indefinite 



CHAPTER XIII 95 

nature. One was for visiting the East and exploring the inte- 
rior of Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a vague 
notion that valuable discoveries were to be made there, and 
many useful inventions in the arts brought back to the stock of 
European knowledge. " Thus, in Siberian Tartary," observes 5 
he, in one of his writings, " the natives extract a strong spirit 
from milk, which is a secret probably unknown to the chemists 
of Europe. In the most savage parts of India they are possessed 
of the secret of dyeing vegetable substances scarlet, and that of 
refining lead into a metal which, for hardness and color, is little IG 
inferior to silver." ° 

Gold«nith adds a description of the kind of person suited to 
such an enterprise, in which he evidently had himself in view. 

" He should be a man of philosophical turn, one apt to deduce 
consequences of general utility from particular occurrences ; 15 
neither swoln with pride, nor hardened by prejudice ; neither 
wedded to one particular system, nor instructed only in one par- 
ticular science ; neither wholly a botanist, nor quite an anti- 
quarian; his mind should be tinctured with miscellaneous 
knowledge, and his manners humanized by an intercourse 20 
with men. He should be in some measure an enthusiast to the 
design ; fond of travelling, from a rapid imagination and an 
innate love of change; furnished with a body capable of sustain- 
ing every fatigue, and a heart not easily terrified at danger." 

In 1761, when Lord Bute became prime minister on the acces-25 
sion of George the Third, Goldsmith drew up a m^emorial on 
the subject, suggesting the advantages to be derived from a 
mission to those countries solely for useful and scientific pur- 
poses ; and, the better to insure success, he preceded his appli- 
cation to the government by an ingenious essay to the same 30 
effect in the Public Ledger. 

His memorial and his essay were fruitless, his project most 
probably being deemed the dream of a visionary. Still it con- 
tinued to haunt his mind, and he would often talk of making 
an expedition to Aleppo some time or other, when his means 35 
were greater, to inquire into the arts peculiar to the East, and 
to bring home such as might be valuable. Johnson, who knew 
how little poor Goldsmith was fitted by scientific lore for this 
favorite scheme of his fancy, scoffed at the project when it was 



96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

mentioned to him. " Of all men," said he, " Goldsmith is the 
most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry, for he is utterly- 
ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and, consequently, 
could not know what would be accessions to our present stock 
5 of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grind- 
ing-barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think 
that he had furnished a wonderful improvement." 

His connection with ]^ewbery the bookseller now led him 
into a variety of temporary jobs, such as a jjamphlet on the Cock- 

10 Lane Ghost,° a Life of Beau Nash, the famous Master of Cere- 
monies at Bath, &c. : one of the best things for his fame, 
however, was the remodelling and republication of his Chinese 
Letters under the title of The Citizen of the World, a work which 
has long since taken its merited stand among the classics of the 

15 English language. " Few works," it has been observed by one 
of his biographers, " exhibit a nicer perception, or more delicate 
delineation of life and manners. Wit, humor, and sentiment 
pervade every page ; the vices and follies of the day are touched 
with the most playful and diverting satire ; and English char- 

20 acteristics, in endless variety, are hit off with the pencil of a 
master." 

In seeking materials for his varied views of life, he often 
mingled in strange scenes and got involved in whimsical situa- 
tions. In the summer of 1762 he was one of the thousands who 

25 went to see the Cherokee chiefs, whom he mentions in one of 
his writings. The Indians made their appearance in grand 
costume, hideously painted and besmeared. In the course of 
the visit Goldsmith made one of the chiefs a present, who, in 
the ecstasy of his gratitude, gave him an embrace that left his 

30 face well bedaubed with oil and red ochre. 

Towards the close of 1762 he removed to '' merry Islington," 
then a country village, though now swallowed up in omnivorous 
London. He went there for the benefit of country air, his 
health being injured by literary application and confinement, , 

35 and to be near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who residec" ' 
in the Canonbiiry House. In this neighborhood he used tc 
take his solitary rambles, sometimes extending his walks to the 
gardens of the " White Conduit House," ° so famous among the 
essayists of the last century. While strolling one day in these 



CHAPTER XIII 97 

gardens, he met three females of tlie family of a respectable 
tradesman to whom he was under some obligation. With his 
prompt disposition to oblige, he conducted them about the 
garden, treated them to tea, and ran up a bill in the most open- 
handed manner imaginable ; it was only when he came to pay 5 
that he found himself in one of his old dilemmas — he had not 
the wherewithal in his pocket. A scene of perjDlexity now took 
place between him and the waiter, in the midst of which came 
up some of his acquaintances, in whose eyes he wished to stand 
particularly well. This completed his mortification. There 10 
was no concealing the awkwardness of his position. The sneers 
of the j^^aiter revealed it. His acquaintances amused them- 
selves for some time at his expense, professing their inability to 
relieve him. When, however, they had enjoyed their banter, 
the waiter was paid, and poor Goldsmith enabled to convoy off 15 
the ladies with flying colors. 

Among the various productions thrown off: by him for the 
booksellers during this growing period of his reputation, was a 
small work in two volumes, entitled The History of England, 
in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son. It was 20 
digested from Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet. These authors 
he would read in the morning; make a few notes ; ramble with 
a friend into the country about the skirts of "merry Isling- 
ton" ; return to a temperate dinner and cheerful evening ; and, 
before going to bed, wi'ite off what had arranged itself in his 25 
head from the studies of the morning. In this way he took a 
more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free and 
fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among 
authorities. The work, like many others written by him in the 
earlier part of his literary career, was anonymous. Some attrib- 30 
uted it to Lord Chesterfield," others to Lord Orrery, and others 
to Lord Lyttelton. The latter seemed pleased to be the puta- 
tive father, and never disowned the bantling thus laid at his 
door ; and well might he have been proud to be considered 
capable of producing what has been well-pronounced "the most 35 
finished and elegant summary of English history in the same 
compass that has been or is likely to be written." 

The reputation of Goldsmith, it will be x)erceived, grew 
slowly ; he was known and estimated by a few ; but he had not 



98 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

those brilliant though fallacioas qualities which flash upon the 
public, and excite loud but transient applause. His works were 
more read than cited ; and the charm of style, for which he was 
especially noted, was more apt to be felt than talked about. He 
5 used often to repine, in a half humorous, half querulous man- 
ner, at his tardiness in gaining the laurels which he felt to be 
his due. " The public," he would exclaim, " will never do me 
justice ; whenever I write anything, they make a point to 
know nothing about it." 

10 About the beginning of 1763 he became acquainted with 
Boswell, whose literary gossipings were destined to have a 
deleterious effect upon his reputation. Boswell was at that 
time a young man, light, buoyant, pushing, and presumptuous. 
He had a morbid passion for mingling in the society of men 

15 noted for wit and learning, and had just arrived from Scotland, 
bent upon making his way into the literary circles of the 
metropolis. An intimacy with Dr. Johnson, the great literary 
luminary of the day, was the crowning object of his aspiring 
and somewhat ludicrous ambition. He expected to meet him 

20 at a dinner to which he was invited at Davies the bookseller's, 
but was disappointed. Goldsmith was present, but he was not 
as yet sufficiently renowned to excite the reverence of Boswell. 
" At this time," says he in his N'otes, " I think he had published 
nothing with his name, though it was pretty generally under- 

25 stood that one Dr. G-oldsmith was the author oi An Inquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe, and of The 
Citizen of the World, a series of letters supposed to be written 
from London, by a Chinese." 

A conversation took place at table between Goldsmith and 

30 Mr. Robert Dodsley, compiler of the well-known collection of 
modern poetry, as to the merits of the current poetry of the 
day. Goldsmith declared there was none of superior merit. 
Dodsley cited his own collection in proof of the contrary. " It 
is true," said he, " we can boast of no palaces nowadays, like 

35 Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia's Day, but we have villages com- 
posed of very pretty houses." Goldsmith, however, maintained 
that there was nothing above mediocrity, an opinion in which 
Johnson, to whom it was repeated, concurred, and with reason, 
for the era was one of the dead levels of British poetry. 



CHAPTER XIII 99 

Boswell has made no note of this conversation ; he was an 
unitarian in his literary devotion, and disposed to worship 
none but Johnson. Little Davies endeavored to console him 
for his disappointment, and to stay the stomach of his curiosity, 
by giving him imitations of the great lexicographer; mouth- 5 
ing his words, rolling his head, and assuming as ponderous a 
manner as his petty person would permit. Boswell was shortly 
afterwards made happy by an introduction to Johnson, of 
whom he became the obsequious satellite. From him he like- 
wise imbibed a more favorable opinion of Goldsmith's merits, 10 
though he was fain to consider them derived in a great meas- 
ure from his Magnus Apollo. " He had sagacity enough," says 
he, " t(5' cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and 
his faculties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation of 
such a model. To me and many others it appeared that he 15 
studiously copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon 
a smaller scale." So on another occasion he calls him " one of 
the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school." " His re- 
spectful attachment to Johnson," adds he, " was then at its 
height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distin-20 
guished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition 
with his great master." 

What beautiful instances does the garrulous Boswell give of 
the goodness of heart of Johnson, and the passing homage to it 
by Goldsmith. They were speaking of a Mr. Levett, long an 25 
inmate of Johnson's house and a dependent on his bounty ; but 
who, Boswell thought, must be an irksome charge upon him, 
" He is poor and honest," said Goldsmith, " which is recom- 
mendation enough to Johnson." 

Boswell mentioned another person of a very bad character, 30 
and wondered at Johnson's kindness to him. " He is now ' 
become miserable," said Goldsmith, " and that insures the pro- 
tection of Johnson." Encomiums like these speak almost as 
much for the heart of him who praises as of him who is 
praised. 35 

Subsequently, when Boswell had become more intense in his 
literary idolatry, he affected to undervalue Goldsmith, and a 
lurking hostility to him is discernible throughout his writings, 
which some have attributed to a silly spirit of jealousy of the 

LofC.^ 



100 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

superior esteem evinced for the poet by Dr. Johnson. We have 
a gleam of this in his account of the first evening he spent in 
company with those two eminent authors at their famous resort, 
the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet Street. This took place on the 1st 
5 of July, 1763. The trio supped together, and passed some time 
in literary conversation. On quitting the tavern, Johnson, who 
had now been sociably acquainted with Goldsmith for two 
years, and knew his merits, took him with him to drink tea 
with his blind pensioner," Miss Williams, — a high privilege 

10 among his intimates and admirers. To Boswell, a recent 
acquaintance, whose intrusive sycophancy had not yet made 
its way into his confidential intimacy, he gave no invitation. 
Boswell felt it with all the jealousy of a little mind. " Dr. 
Goldsmith," says he, in his Memoirs, "being a privileged man 

15 went with him, strutting away, and calling to me, with an air 
of superiority like that of an esoteric over an exoteric disciple 
of a sage of antiquity, ' I go to Miss Williams.' I confess I then 
envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed to be so 
proud ; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of 

20 distinction." 

Obtained ! but how? not like Goldsmith, by the force of un- 
pretending but congenial merit, but by a course of the most 
pushing, contriving, and spaniel-like subserviency. Really, the 

. ambition of the man to illustrate his mental insignificance, by 

25 continually placing himself in juxtaposition with the great 
lexicographer, has something in it perfectly ludicrous. Never, 
since the days of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, has there 
been presented to the world a more whimsically contrasted x^air 
of associates than Johnson and Boswell. 

30 " Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" asked some 
one when Boswell had worked his way into incessant compan- 
ionship. " He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith, " you are too 
severe; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in 
sport, and he has the faculty of sticking." 



CHAPTER XIV 101 



CHAPTER XIV 

Hogarth a Visitor at Islington ; His Character. — Street Studies.— 
Sympathies between Autliors and Painters. — Sir Joshua Reynolds ; 
His Character ; his Dinners. — The Literary Club ; Its Members. — 
Johnson's Revels with Lanky and Beau. — Goldsmith at the Club. 

Among the intimates who used to visit the poet occasionally 
in his retreat at Islington, was Hogarth the painter. ° Gold- 
smith had spoken well of him in his essays in the Public Ledger, 
and this formed the first link in their friendship. He was at 
this time upwards of sixty years of age, and is described as 5 
a stout, active, bustling little man, in a sky-blue coat, satirical 
and dogmatic, yet full of real benevolence and the love of 
human nature. He was the moralist and philosopher of the 
pencil ; like Goldsmith he had sounded the depths of vi<;e 
and misery, without being polluted by them ; and though 10 
his picturings had not the pervading amenity of those of the 
essayist, and dwelt more on the crimes and vices than the 
follies and humors of mankind, yet they were all calculated, in 
like manner, to fill the mind with instruction and precept, and 
to make the heart better. 15 

Hogarth does not appear to have had much of the rural feel- 
ing with which Goldsmith was so amply endowed, and may not 
have accompanied him in his strolls about hedges and green 
lanes : but he was a fit companion with w^hom to explore the 
mazes of London, in which he was continually on the lookout 20 
for character and incident. One of Hogarth's admirers speaks 
of having come upon him in Castle Street, engaged in one of 
his street-studies, watching two boys who were quarrelling ; pat- 
ting one on the back who flinched, and endeavoring to spirit 
him up to a fresh encounter. " At him again ! D — him, if 1 25 
would take it of him ! At him again ! " 

A frail memorial of this intimacy between the painter and 
the poet exists in a portrait in oil, called Goldsiniih's Hostess. 
It is supposed to have been painted by Hogarth in the course 
of his visits to Islington, and giye;i by him to the poet as a 30 



102 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

means of paying his landlady. There are no friendships among 
men of talents more likely to be sincere than those between 
painters and poets. Possessed of the same qualities of mind, 
governed by the same principles of taste and natural laws of 
5 grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet mutually 
illustrative arts, they are constantly in sympathy, and never in 
collision with each other. 

A still more congenial intimacy of the kind was that con- 
tracted by Goldsmith with Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Rey- 

10 nolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few 
years older than the poet, whom he charmed by the blandness 
and benignity of his manners^ and the nobleness and generosity 
of his disposition, as much as he did by the graces of his pencil 
and the magic of his coloring. They were men of kindred 

15 genius, excelling in corresponding qualities of their several arts, 
for style in writing is what color is in painting ; both are 
innate endowments, and equally magical in their effects. Cer- 
tain graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by diligent 
study and imitation, but only in a limited degree ; whereas by 

20 their natural possessors they are exercised spontaneously, almost 
unconsciously, and with ever-var3'-ing fascination. Reynolds 
soon understood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, and 
a sincere and lasting friendship ensued between them. 

At Reynolds's house Goldsmith mingled in a higher range of 

25 company than he had been accustomed to. The fame of this 
celebrated artist, and his amenity of manners, were gathering 
round him men of talents of all kinds, and the increasing 
affluence of his circumstances enabled him to give full indul- 
gence to his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not 

30 yet, like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough to atone for 
his external defects and his want of the air of good society. 
Miss Reynolds used to inveigh against his personal appearance, 
which gave her the idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a journey- 
man tailor. One evening at a large supper-party, being called 

35 upon to give as a toast the ugliest man she knew, she gave Dr. 
Goldsmith, upon which a lady who sat opposite, and whom she 
had never met before, shook hands with her across the table, 
and '^ hoped to become better acquainted." 

We have a graphic and amusing picture of Reynolds's hospi- 



CHAPTER XIV 103 

table but motley establishinent, in an account given by a Mr. 
Courtenay to Sir James Mackintosh"; though it speaks of a 
time after Reynolds had received the honor of knighthood. 
" There was something singular," said he, " in the style and 
economy of Sir Joshua's table that contributed to pleasantry 5 
and good humor, — a coarse, inelegant plenty, without any 
regard to order and arrangement. At five o'clock j)recisely, 
dinner was served, whether all the invited guests had arrived 
or not. Sir Joshua was never so fashionably ill-bred as to wait 
an hour perhaps for two or three persons of rank or title, and 10 
put the rest of the company out of humor by this invidious 
distinction. His invitations, however, did not regulate the 
number of his guests. Many dropped in uninvited. A table 
prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to contain fif- 
teen or sixteen. There was a consequent deficiency of knives, 15 
forks, plates, and glasses. The attendance was in the same 
style, and those who were knowing in the ways of the house 
took care on sitting down to call instantly for beer, bread, or 
wine, that they might secure a supply before the first course 
was over. He was once pi'e vailed on to furnish the table with 20 
decanters and glasses at dinner, to save time and prevent con- 
fusion. These gradually were demolished in the course of ser- 
vice, and were never replaced. These trifling embarrassments, 
however, only served to enhance the hilarity and singular 
pleasure of the entertainment. The wine, cookery, and dishes 25 
were but little attended to ; nor was the fish or venison ever 
talked of or recommended, Amidst this convivial animated 
bustle among his guests, our host sat perfectly composed; always 
attentive to what was said, never minding what was ate or drank, 
but left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself." 80 

Out of the casual but frequent meeting of men of talent 
at this hospitable board rose that association of wits, authors, 
scholars, and statesmen, renowned as the Literary Club. Rey- 
nolds was the first to propose a regular association of the kind, 
and was eagerly secondeel by Johnson, who proposed as a model 35 
a club which he had formed many years previously in Ivy- 
Lane, but which was now extinct. Like that club the number 
of members was limited to nine. They were to meet and sup 
together once a week, on Monday night, at the Turk's Head 



104 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

on Gerard Street, Soho, and two members were to constitute a 
meeting. It took a regular form in the year 1764, but did not 
receive its literary appellation until several years afterwards. 
The original members were Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Dr. 
5 Nugent, Bennet Langton, Topham Beauclerc, Chamier, Haw- 
kins, and Goldsmith ; and here a few words concerning some 
of the members may be acceptable. Burke was at that time 
about thirty -three years of age ; he had mingled a little in 
politics and been Under-Secretary to Hamilton at Dublin, 

10 but was again a writer for the booksellers, and as yet but in 
the dawning of his fame. Dr. Nugent was his father-in-law, a 
Roman Catholic, and a physician of talent and instruction. 
Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins was admitted into this 
association from having been a member of Johnson's Ivy-Lane 

15 club. Originally an attorney, he had retired from the practice 
of the law, in consequence of a large fortune which fell to him 
in right of his wife, and was now a Middlesex magistrate. He 
was, moreover, a dabbler in literature and music, and was act- 
ually engaged on a history of music, which he subsequently 

20 published in five ponderous volumes. To him we are also 
indebted for a biography of Johnson, which appeared after the 
death of that eminent man. Hawkins was as mean and parsi- 
monious as he was pompous and conceited. He forbore to 
partake of the suppers at the club, and begged therefore to be 

25 excused from paying his share of the reckoning. " And was 
he excused?" asked Dr. Barney of Johnson. " Oh, yes, for no 
man is angry with another for being inferior to himself. We all 
scorned him and admitted his plea. Yet I really believe him 
to be an honest man at bottom, though to be sure he is penu- 

30 rious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a tendency 
to savageness." He did not remain above two or three years in 
the club ; being in a manner elbowed out in consequence of his 
rudeness to Burke. 

Mr. Anthony Chamier was Secretary in the war -office, and a 

35 friend to Beauclerc, by whom he was proposed. We have left 
out mention of Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerc until 
the last, because we have most to say about them. They were 
doubtless induced to join the club through their devotion to 
Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very young and aristo- 



CHAPTER XIV 105 

cratic men with the stern and somewhat melancholy moralist 
is among the curiosities of literature. 

Benuet Langton was of an ancient family, who held their an- 
cestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, — a great title to 
respect with Johnson. " Langton, sir," he would say, "has a 5 
grant of free-warren"^ from Henry the Second ; and Cardinal 
Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family," 

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthusiastic nature. 
When but eighteen years of age he was so delighted with read- 
ing Johnson's Rambler, that he came to London chiefly with 10 
a view to obtain an introduction to the author. Boswell gives 
us an account of his first interview, which took place in the 
morning. It is not often that the j)ersonal appearance of 
an author agrees with the preconceived ideas of his admirer. 
Langton, from perusing the writings of Johnson, expected to 15 
find him a decent, well-dressed, in short a remarkably decorous 
philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bedchamber 
about noon, came, as newly risen, a large uncouth figure, with 
a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his 
clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was so 20 
rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and politi- 
cal notions so congenial with those in which Langton had been 
educated, that he conceived for him that veneration and attach- 
ment which he ever preserved. 

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, 25 
where Johnson saw much of him during a visit which he paid 
to the University. He found him in close intimacy with Top- 
ham Beauclerc, a youth two years older than himself, very gay 
and dissipated, and w^ondered what sympathies could draw two 
young men together of such opposite characters. On becoming 30 
acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake though he was, 
he possessed an ardent love of literature, an acute understanding, 
polished wit, innate gentility, and high aristocratic breeding. 
He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney Beaucjerc and 
grandson of the Duke of St. Albans, and was thoughtln some 35 
particulars to have a resemblance to Charles the Second. These 
were high recommendations with Johnson; and when the 
youth testified a profound respect for him and an ardent ad- 
miration of his talents, the conquest was complete, so tliat in a 



106 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" short time," says Boswell, " the moral pious Johnson and the 
gay dissipated Beauclerc were companions." 

The intimacy begun in college chambers was continued wiien 
the youths came to town during the vacations. The uncouth, 
5 unwieldy moralist was flattered at finding himself an object of 
idolatry to two high-born, high-bred, aristocratic young men, 
and throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in their vagaries 
and play the part of a " young man upon town." Such at least 
is the picture given of him by Boswell on one occasion when 

10 Beauclerc and Langton, having supped together at a tavern, 
determined to give Johnson a rouse at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. They accordingly rapped violently at the door of his 
chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage sallied forth in 
his shirt, poker in hand, and a little black wig on the top of his 

15 head, instead of helmet ; pre^Dared to wreak vengeance on the 
assailants of his castle ; but when his two young friends Lanky 
and Beau, as he used to call them, presented themselves, sum- 
moning him forth to a morning ramble, his whole manner 
changed. " What, is it you, ye dogs?" cried he. " Faith, I'll 

20 have a frisk with you ! " 

So said so done. They sallied forth together into Covent- 
Garden ; figured among the green-grocers and fruit-women, just 
come in from the country with their hampers ; repaired to a 
neighboring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of bishop, a 

25 favorite beverage with him, grew merry over his cups, and 
anathematized sleep in two lines, from Lord Lansdowne's° 
drinking-song : — 

" Short, very short, be then thy reign, 
For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again." 

30 They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and Johnson 
and 'Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," to "keep it up" 
for the rest of the day. Langton, however, the most sober- 
minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to breakfast with 
some young ladies ; whereupon the great moralist reproached 

35 him with " leaving his social friends to go and sit with a set of 
wretched un-idea'd girls." 

This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made a sensa- 
tion, as may well be supposed, among his intimates. " I heard 



CHAPTER XIV 107 

of your frolic t'other night," said Garrick to him ; " you'll be in 
the Chronicle." He uttered worse forebodings to others. "I 
shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house," said he. 
Johnson, however, valued himself upon having thus enacted a 
chapter in the Rake's Progress ° and crowed over Garrick on 5 
the occasion. " He durst not do such a thing ! " chuckled he ; 
" his ivife would not let him ! " 

When these two young men entered the club, Langton was 
about twenty-two, and Beauclerc about twenty-four years of 
age, and both were launched on London life. Langton, how- 10 
ever, was still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the lips 
in Greek, with fine conversational powers, and an invaluable 
talent fm* listening. He was upwards of six feet high, and very 
spare. " Oh ! that we could sketch him," exclaims Miss Haw- 
kins, in her Memoirs', " with his mild countenance, his elegant 15 
features, and his sweet smile, sitting with one leg twisted round 
the other, as if fearing to occupy more space than was equi- 
table ; his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength to 
support his weight, and his arms crossed over his bosom, or his 
hands locked together on his knee." Beauclerc, on such occa- 20 
sions, sportively compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, 
standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more a "man upon town," 
a lounger in St. James's Street, an associate with George 
Selwyn, with Walpole, and other aristocratic wits ; a man of 
fashion at court ; a casual frequenter of the gaming-table ; yet, 25 
with all this, he alternated in the easiest and liap]:>iest manner 
the scholar and the man of letters ; lounged into the club with 
the most perfect self -possession, bringing with him the careless 
grace and polished wit of high-bred society, but making him- 
self cordially at home among his learned fellow-members. 30 

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over Johnson, 
who was fascinated by that air of the world, that ineffable tone 
of good society in which he felt himself deficient, especially as 
the possessor of it always paid homage to his superior talent. 
" Beauclerc," he would say, using a quotation from Pope, " has 35 
a love of folly, but a scorn of fools ; everything he does shows 
the one, and everything he says, the other." Beauclerc de- 
lighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom others stood in 
awe, and no one, according to Boswell, could take equal liberty 



108 " OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

with him with impunity. Johnson, it is well known, was often 
shabby and negligent in his dress, and not overcleanly in his 
person. On receiving a pension from the crown, his friends 
vied with each other in respectful congratulations. Beauclerc 
5 simply scanned his person with a whimsical glance, and hoped 
that, like Falstaff,° "he'd in future purge and live cleanly like 
a gentleman," Johnson took the hint with unexpected good- 
humor, and profited by it. 

Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted shafts on every 

10 side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. " Sir," said he on 

one occasion, " you never open your mouth but with intention 

to give pain ; and yoa have often given me pain, not from the 

power of what you have said, but from seeing your intention." 

When it was at first proposed to enroll Goldsmith among the 

15 members of this association, there seems to have been some 
demur ; at least so says the pompous Hawkins. " As he wrote 
for the booksellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere lit- 
erary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, 
but little capable of original and still less of poetical composi- 

20 tion." 

Even for some time after his admission he continued to be 
regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Johnson 
and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor was 
Burke a stranger to them ; but to the others he was as yet a 

25 sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing. His un- 
gainly person and awkward manners were against him with 
men accustomed to the graces of society, and he was not suffi- 
ciently at home to give play to his humor and to that bon- 
homie which won the hearts of all who knew him. He felt 

30 strange and out of place in his new sphere ; he felt at times the 
cool satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him, and the 
more he attempted to appear at his ease, the more awkward he 
became. 



CHAPTER XV 109 



CHAPTER XV 

Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith ; Finds him in Distress with his Land- 
lady ; Relieved by The Vicar of Wakefield. — The Oratorio. — Poem of 
The Traveller. — The Poet and his Dog. — Success of the Poem. — 
Astonishment of the Club. — Observations on the Poem. 

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith's best friends 
and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character, but 
he knew also his merits ; and while he would rebuke him like a 
child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer no one 
else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness of his 5 
jadgment and his practical benevolence, and often sought his 
counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his heedlessness 
was continually plunging him. 

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "a message from 
poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not 10 
in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him 
as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come 
to hira directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 
and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at 
which he was in a violent passion : I perceived that he had 15 
already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a 
glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he 
would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which 
he might be extricated. He then told me he had a novel ready 
for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and 20 
saw its merit ; told the landlady I should soon return ; and, 
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought 
Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without 
rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." 

The novel in question ° was The Vicar of Wakefield ; the book- 25 
seller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, nephew 
to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating work, which 
has obtained and preserved an almost unrivalled popularity in 
various languages, was so little appreciated by the bookseller, 
that he kept it by him for nearly two years unpublished ! 30 



110 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in poetry. 
Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an Oratorio entitled 
The Captivity, founded on the bondage of the Israelites in Bab- 
ylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of the Muse 
5 ushered into existence amid the distortions of music. Most of 
the Oratorio has passed into oblivion ; but the following song 
from it will never die. 

" The wretch condemned from life to part, 
Still, still on hope relies, 
10 And every pang that rends the heart 

Bids expectation rise. 

" Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, 
Illumes and cheers our way ; 
And still, as darker grows the night, 
15 Emits a brighter ray." 

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry, 
and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it. 
"I fear," said he, "I have come too late into the world ; Pope 
and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of Fame ; 

20 and as few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man 
of genius can now hardly acquire it." Again, on another oc- 
casion, he observes : " Of all kinds of ambition, as things are 
now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame 
is the wildest. What from the increased refinement of the 

25 times, from the diversity of judgment produced by opposing 
systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of 
opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts 
can expect to please but in a very narrow circle." 

At this very time he had by him his poem of The Traveller. 

30 The plan of it, as has already been observed, was conceived 
many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and a 
sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in 
Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider 
scope; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, in; 

35 the process of finishing the parts. It had lain by him for sev-> 
eral years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesitatioi 
and after much revision that he at length submitted it to DrJj 
Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter en-- 



CHAPTER XV 111 

couraged him to finish it for the press ; and Dr. Johnson him- 
self contributed a few lines towards the conclusion. 

We hear much about " poetic inspiration," and the " poet's 
eye in a fine phrensy rolling ; " but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives 
an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, cal- 5 
dilated to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. 
Calling upon the poet one day, he opened the door without 
ceremony, and found him in the double occupation of turning 
a couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. 
At one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at an- 10 
other shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his posi- 
tion. The last lines on the page were still wet ; they form a 
part c^ the description of Italy : — 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, 
The sports of children satisfy the child." 15 

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh 
caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that 
his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza. 

The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, in 
a quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works to 20 
which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of 
cherished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his 
brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation of indiffer- 
ence as to its fate expressed in the dedication. "What re- 
ception a poem may find," says he, " which has neither abuse, 25 
party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I 
solicitous to know." The truth is, no one was more emulous 
and anxious for poetic fame ; and never was he more anxious 
than in the present instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. 
Johnson aided the launching of the poem by a favorable notice 30 
in the Critical Review; other periodical works came out in 
its favor. Some of the author's friends complained that it did 
not command instant and wide popularity ; that it was a poem 
to win, not to strike : it went on rapidly increasing in favor ; 
in three months a second edition was issued; shortly after- 35 
wards, a third ; then a fourth ; and, before the year was out, 
the author was pronounced the best poet of his time. 

The appearance of The Traveller at once altered Gold- 



112 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

smith's intellectual standing in the estimation of society ; but 
its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account 
given by Hawkins, was almost ludicrous. They were lost in 
astonishment that a "newspaper essayist" and "bookseller's 
5 drudge " should have written such a poem. On the evening 
of its announcement to them Goldsmith had gone away early, 
after " rattling away as usual," and they knew not how to 
reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the 
easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation 

10 of his poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic 
numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says 
Johnson, "it was with difliculty they could give a hearing." 
" Well," exclaimed Chamier, " I do believe he wrote this poem 
himself, and let me tell you, that is believing a great deal." 

15 At the next meeting of the club, Chamier sounded the au- 
thor a little about his poem. " Mr. Goldsmith," said he, " what 
do you mean by the last word in the first line of your Traveller, 
'Remote, unfriended, melancholy, sloio'f — do you mean tardi- 
ness of locomotion?" — "Yes," replied Goldsmith, inconsider- 

20 ately, being probably flurried at the moment. " No, sir," 
interposed his protecting friend Johnson, " you did not mean 
tardiness of locomotion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind 
which comes upon a man in solitude." — "Ah," exclaimed 
Goldsmith, " that was what I meant." Chamier immediately 

25 believed that Johnson himself had written the line, and a 
rumor became prevalent that he was the author of man 3^ of 
the finest passages. This was ultimately set at rest by John- 
son himself, who marked with a pencil all the verses he had 
contributed, nine in number, inserted towards the conclusion, 

30 and by no means the best in the poem. He moreover, with 
generous warmth, pronounced it the finest poem that had 
appeared since the days of Pope. 

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the 
poem was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor 

35 Goldsmith as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shortly 
after the appearance of The Traveller, Dr. Johnson read it 
aloud from beginning to end in her presence. "Well," ex- 
claimed she, when he had finished, " I never more shall think 
Dr. Goldsmith ugly ! " 



CHAPTER XVI 113 

On another occasion, when the merits of The Traveller were 
discussed at Reynolds's board, Langton declared " there was not 
a bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden^s careless verses." 
"I was glad," observed Reynolds, "to hear Charles Fox say it 
was one of the finest poems in the English language." "Why 5 
were you glad?" rejoined Langton, "you surely had no doubt 
of this before." "No," interposed Johnson, decisively; "the 
merit of The Traveller is so well established, that Mr. Fox's 
praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it." 

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the 10 
publication of The Traveller, was astonished, on his return, to 
find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, suddenly 
elevated almost to a par with his idol. He accounted for it by 
concluding that much both of the sentiments and expression of 
the poem had been derived from conversations with Johnson. 15 
"He imitates you, sir," said this incarnation of toadyism. 
"Why no, sir," replied Johnson, "Jack Hawksworth is one of 
my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit." 
" But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in 
the public estimation." " Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got sooner 20 
to it by his intimacy with me." 

The poem went through several editions in the course of the 
first year, and received some few additions and corrections from 
the author's pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr. New- 
bery ; but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his nig- 25 
gard hand to the author, was twenty guineas ! 



CHAPTER XVI 



New Lodgings. — Johnson's Compliment. — A Titled Patron. — The Poet 
at Northumberland House. — His Independence of the Great. — The 
Countess of Northumberland. — Edwin and Angelina. — Gosfield and 
Lord Clare. — Publication of Essays. — Evils of a Rising Reputa- 
tion. — Hangers-on. — Job-Writing. — Goody Two-Shoes. — A Medi- 
cal Campaign. — Mrs. Sidebotham. 

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and becom- 
ing a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style of 



114 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

living. He accordingly emerged from Wine-Office Court, and 
took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but of 
humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library 
staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate 
5 with Jeffc's, the butler of the society. Still he was in the Tem- 
ple, that classic region rendered famous by the Spectator and 
other essayists as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men of 
letters ; and which, with its retired courts and embowered 
gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet- 

10 seeking student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure 
in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had become a kind of 
growling supervisor of the poet's affairs, paid him a visit soon 
after he had installed himself in his new quarters, and went 
prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted manner, ex- 

15 amining everything minutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this 
curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, 
exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both 
pockets, " I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The 
harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson, which touched 

20 the chord of proper pride. " Nay, sir," said he, " never mind 
that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," ° — implying that his reputation 
rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it 
have been for poor Goldsmith, could he have kept this consola- 
tory compliment perpetually in mind, and squared his expenses 

25 accordingly. 

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits 
of The Traveller was the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Northum- 
berland. He procured several other of Goldsmith's writings, 
the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in his good 

30 opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The Earl held the 
office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding Gold- 
smith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him the 
patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated the 
same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well ac- 

35 quainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter 
should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity 
for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been knowing and 
worldly enough to profit by it. Unluckily the path to fortune 
lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, 



CHATTER XVI 115 

and the poet blundered at the outset. The foUowmg is the 
account he used to give of his visit : " I dressed myself in the 
best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I 
thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to Northum- 
berland House, and acquainted the servants that I had particular 5 
business with the Duke. They showed me into an antechamber, 
where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very elegantly 
dressed, made his appearance : taking him for the Duke, I deliv- 
ered all the fine things I had composed in order to compliment 
him on the honor he had done me ; when, to my great astonish- 10 
ment, he told me I had mistaken him for his master, who would 
see me immediately. At that instant the Duke came into the 
apartnftent, and I was so confounded on the occasion that I 
wanted words barely sufficient to express the sense I entertained 
of the Duke's politeness, and went away exceedingly chagrined 15 
at the blunder I had committed." 

Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, gives some 
farther particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a wit- 
ness. " Having one day," says he, " a call to make On the late 
Duke (then Earl) of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith wait- 20 
ing for an audience in an outer room : I asked him what had 
brought him there ; he told me, an invitation from his lordship. 
I made my business as short as I could, and, as a reason, men- 
tioned that Dr. Goldsmith w^as waiting without. The Earl 
asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him that I 25 
was, adding what I thought was most likely to recommend him. 
I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him home. Upon 
his coming out, I asked him the result of his conversation. 
' His lordship,' said he, ' told me he had read my poem, mean- 
ing The Traveller, and was much delighted wdth it; that he was 30 
going to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing I was a 
native of that country, he should be glad to do me any kind- 
ness.' 'And what did you answer,' said I, 'to this gracious 
offer? ' ' Why,' said he, 'I could say nothing but that I had a 
brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help : as for 35 
myself, I have no great dependence on the promises of great 
men ; I look to the booksellers for support ; they are my best 
friends, and I am not inclined to forsake them for others.' " 
"Thus," continues Sir John, "did this idiot in the affairs of 



116 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that 
was held out to assist him." 

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the con- 
duct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that 
5 honest independence of spirit which prevented him from asking 
favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which 
instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother ; but the 
peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little 
understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biog- 

10 raphers of the day. 

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not 
prove so complete a failure as the humorous account given by 
Goldsmith, and the cynical account given by Sir John Hawkins, 
might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of the 

15 ancient Percies, brought the poet into the acquaintance of his 
kinswoman, the countess; who, before her marriage with the 
Earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of ISTorthum- 
berland. " She was a lady," says Boswell, " not only of high 
dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of excel- 

20 lent understanding and lively talents." Under her auspices a 
poem of Goldsmith's had an aristocratical introduction to the 
world. This was the beautiful ballad of The Hermit° origi- 
nally published under the name of Edwin and Angelina. It 
was suggested by an old English Ballad j^begimiing " Gentle 

25 Herdsman," shown him by Dr. Percy, who was at that time 
making his famous collection, entitled Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry, which he submitted to the inspection of Gold- 
smith j)iior to publication. A few copies only of The Hermit 
were printed at first, with the following title-page : Edioin and 

30 A ngelina : a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith. Printed for the 
Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland. 

All this, though it may not have been attended with any 
immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to give Gold- 
smith's name and poetry the high stamp of fashion, so potent 

35 in England : the circle at ISTorth umber land House, however, 
was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to his 
taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it. 

He was much more at home at Gosfield, the seat of his coun- 
tryman, Robert Nugent, afterwards Baron Nugent and Viscount 



CHAPTER XVI 111 

Clare, who appreciated his merits even more heartily than the 
Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally made him his guest 
both in town and country. Nugent is described as a jovial 
voluptuary, who left the Roman-Catholic for the Protestant 
religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes ; he had an Irish- 5 
man's inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman's luck with 
the sex ; having been thrice married, and gained a fortune with 
each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a remarkably loud 
voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but somewhat fcoarse wit. 
With all his occasional coarseness he was capable of high 10 
thought, and had produced poems which showed a truly poetic 
vein. He was long a member of the House of Commons, where 
his ready wit, his fearless decision, and good-humored audacity 
of expression always gained him a hearing, though his tall per- 
son and awkward manner gained him the nickname of Squire 15 
Gawky among the political scribblers of the clay. With a 
patron of this jovial temperament. Goldsmith probably felt 
more at ease than with those of higher refinement. 

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem of 
The Traveller occasioned a resuscitation of many of his miscel- 20 
laneons and anonymous tales and essays from the various news- 
papers and other transient publications in which they lay 
dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected foi'm, 
under the title of Essays by Air. Goldsmith. " The following 
Essays" observes he in his preface, " have already appeared at 25 
different times, and in different publications. The pamphlets 
in which they were inserted being generally unsuccessful, these 
shared the common fate, without assisting the booksellers' aims, 
or extending the author's reputation. The public were too stren- 
uously employed with their own follies to be assiduous in esti- 30 
mating mine; so that many of my best attempts in this way 
have fallen victims to the transient topic of the times — the 
Ghost in Cock Lane, or the Siege of Ticonderoga. 

" But, though they have passed pretty silently into the world, 
lean by no means complain of their circulation. . The maga-35 
zines and papers of the day have indeed been liberal enough in 
this respect. Most of these essays have been regularly reprinted 
twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the public through the 
kennel of some engaging compilation. If there be a pride in 



118 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

multiplied editions, I have seen some of my labors sixteen times 
reprinted, and claimed by different parents as their own. I 
have seen them flourished at the beginning with praise, and 
signed at the end with the names of Philautos,° Philalethes, 
5 Phileleutheros, and Philanthropos. It is time, however, at last 
to vindicate my claims ; and as these entertainers of the public, 
as they call themselves, have partly lived upon me for some 
years, let me now try if I cannot live a little upon myself." 
It w^as but little, in fact ; for all the pecuniary emolument he 

10 received from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good 
circulation, however, was translated into French, and has main- 
tained its stand among the British classics. 

N"otwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had 
greatly risen, his finances were often at a very low ebb, owing 

15 to his heedlessness as to expense, his liability to be imposed 
upon, and a spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to 
every one who asked. The very rise in his reputation had 
increased these embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of 
needy acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, 

20 who came in search of literary counsel ; which generally meant 
a guinea and a breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on! 
'* Our Doctor," said one of these sponges, " had a constant levee 
of his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he was 
able, he always relieved ; and he has often been known to leave 

25 himself without a guinea, in order to supply the necessities of 
others." 

This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to 
undertake all jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up 
a kind of running account with Mr. ^ewbery; who was his 

30 banker on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for 
shillings ; but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be 
amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions, hastily penned 
in these moments of exigency, were published anonymously, 
and never claimed. Some of them have but recently been 

35 traced to his pen ; while of many the true authorship will 
probably never be discovered. Among others, it is suggested, 
and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. JSI'ewbery the 
famous nursery story of Goody Two Shoes, which appeared in 
1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for New- 



CHAPTER Xri 119 

bery, and much pressed for funds. Several quaint little tales 
introduced in his Essays show that he had a turn for this 
species of mock history ; and the advertisement and title-page 
bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor. 

" We are desired to give notice that there is in the press, and 5 
speedily Avill be published, either by subscription or otherwise, 
as the public shall please to determine, the History of Little 
Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mi^s. Margery Two Shoes ; with the 
means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and, in con- 
sequence thereof, her estate ; set forth at large for the benefit 10 
of those 

"Who, from a state of rags and care, 

And having shoes hut half a pair, 
^ Then- fortune and their fame should fix, 

And gallop in a coach and six." 15 

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor, 
good sense, and sly satire contained in many of the old English 
nursery-tales. They have evidently been the sportive produc- 
tions of able writers, who would not trust their names to 
productions that might be considered beneath their dignity. 20 
The ponderous works on which they relied for immortality 
have perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names down 
with them ; while their unacknowledged offspring. Jack the 
Giant Killer, Giles Gingerbread, and Tovi Thumb, flourish in 
wide-spreading and never-ceasing popularity. 25 

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive 
acquaintance, he attempted, with the advice of his friends, to 
procure a more regular and ample support by resuming the 
medical profession. He accordingly launched himself upon the 
town in style ; hired a man-servant ; replenished his wardrobe 30 
at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional wig and 
cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure but- 
toned to tiie chin : a fantastic garb, as we should think at the 
present day, but not unsuited to the fashion of the times. 

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual 35 
magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure 
flaunting from his shoulders, he used to strut into the apart- 
ments of his patients swaying his three-cornered hat in one 
hand and his medical sceptre, the cane, in the other, and 



120 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

assuming an air of • gravity and importance suited to the 
solemnity of liis wig ; at least, such is the picture given of him 
by the waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of 
one of his lady -patients. 
5 He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties and 
restraints of his profession ; his practice was chiefly among his 
friends, and the fees were not sufficient for his maintenance ; he 
was disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and capricious 
patients, and looked back with longing to his tavern-haunts and 

10 broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity and duties of 
his medical calling restrained him. At length, on prescribing 
to a lady of his acquaintance, who, to use a hackneyed phrase, 
"rejoiced" in the aristocratical name of Sidebotham, a warm 
dispute arose between him and the apothecary as to the quan- 

15 tity of medicine to be administered. The Doctor stood up for 
the rights and dignities of his profession, and resented the 
interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights and 
dignities, however, were disregarded ; his wig and cane and 
scarlet roquelaure were of no avail; Mrs. Sidebotham sided with 

20 the hero of the pestle and mortar ; and Goldsmith flung out of 
the house in a passion. "I am determined henceforth," said 
he to Topham Beauclerc, " to leave off prescribing for friends." 
" Do so, my dear Doctor," was the reply ; "whenever you under- 
take to kill, let it be only your enemies." 

25 This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Publication of The Vicar of Wakefield ; Opinions concerning it : Of Dr. 
Johnson ; Of Kogers tiie Poet ; Of Goethe ; Its Merits ; Exquisite 
Extract. — Attack by Kenrick.— Reply. — Book-Building. — Project 
of a Comedy. 

The success of the poem of The Traveller, and the popular- 
ity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the atten- 
tion of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of The Vicar of 



CHAPTER XVII 121 

Wakefield had been slumbering for nearly two long years. The 
idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John Newbery to 
whom the manuscript had been sold, and much surprise has 
been expressed that he should be insensible to its merit and 
suifer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth various 5 
inferior writings by the same author. This, however, is a mis- 
take ; it was his nephew, Francis JSTewbery, who had become 
the fortunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally unaccount- 
able. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew had 
business arrangements together, in which this work was in- 10 
eluded, and that the elder ISTewbery, dubious of its success, 
retarded the publication until the full harvest of The Traveller 
should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make egregious 
mistalfes as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to under- 
value, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excellence, 16 
when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called " effect." 
In the present instance, an intellect vastly superior to that of 
either of the booksellers was equally at fault. Dr. Johnson, 
speaking of the work to Boswell, some time subsequent to its 
publication, observed, "I myself did not think it would have 20 
had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller be- 
fore The Traveller, but published after, so little expectation 
had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Trav- 
eller^ he might have had twice as much money; though sixty 
guineas ivas no mean price." 25 

Sixty guineas for The Vicar of Wakefield ! and this could be 
pronounced no mean price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the 
arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of 
witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind ; for its 
success was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March, 30 
1766 ; before the end of May a second edition was called for ; 
in three months more, a third; and so it went on, widening in 
a popularity that has never flagged. Ilogers,° the Nestor of 
British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite 
mental organization rendered him eminently calculated to 35 
appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books 
which through the fitful changes of three generations he had 
seen rise and fall, the charm of The Vicar of Wakefield had 
alone continued as at first ; and could he revisit the world after 



122 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

an interval of many more generations, he should as surely 
look to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been con- 
fined to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture of 
British scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost 
5 every language, and everywhere its charm has been the same. 
Goethe, the great genius of Germany, declared in his eighty- 
first year, that it was his delight at the age of twenty, that it 
had in a manner formed a part of his education, influencing 
his taste and feelings throughout life, and that he had recently 

10 read it again from beginning to end — with renewed delight, 
and with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it. 
It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work which 
has thus passed from country to country, and language to lan- 
guage, until it is now known throughout the whole reading- 

15 world and is become a household book in every hand. The 
secret of its universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly 
its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind, to 
nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The author, as we have occa- 
sionally shown in the course of this memoir, took his scenes and 

20 characters in this, as in his other writings, from originals in his 
own motley experience ; but he has given them as seen through 
the medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set them forth 
with the colorings of his own good head and heart. Yet how 
contradictory it seems that this, one of the most delightful pic- 

25tures of home and homefelt happiness should be drawn by a 
homeless man ; that the most amiable picture of domestic virtue 
and all the endearments of the married state should be drawn 
by a bachelor, who had been severed from domestic life almost 
from boyhood; that one of the most tender, touching, and 

30 affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness should have 
been made by a man whose deficiency in all the graces of person 
and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical disparager of 
the sex. 

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the work a short 

35 passage illustrative of what we have said, and which within a 
wonderfully small compass comprises a world of beauty of im- 
agery, tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of thought, 
and matchless purity of style. The two stanzas which conclude 
it, in which are told a whole history of woman's wrongs and 



CHAPTER XVII 123 

sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and euphony, a gem in the 
language. The scene depicted is where the poor Vicar is 
gathering around him the wrecks of his shattered family, and 
endeavoring to rally them back to happiness. 

" The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for 5 
the season, so that we agreed to breakfast together on the 
honeysuckle bank ; where, while we sat, my youngest daughter 
at my request joined her voice to the concert on the trees about 
us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, 
and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melan- 10 
choly which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by 
sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. 
Her mother, too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, 
and wept, and loved her daughter as before. 'Do, my pretty 
Olivia,' cried she, ' let us have that melancholy air your father 15 
was so fond of ; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do, 
child, it will please your old father.' She complied in a man- 
ner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me. 

" ' When lovely woman stoops to folly, 

And finds too late that men betray, 20 

What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
What art can wash her guilt away ? 

*' ' The only art her guilt to cover, 

To hide her shaine from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 25 

-^d wring his bosom — is to die.' " 

Scarce had The Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and 
been received with acclamation, than its author was subjected 
to one of the usual penalties that attend success. He was at- 
tacked in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he had intro- 30 
duced his ballad of The Hermit, of which, as we have mentioned, 
a few copies had been printed some considerable time previously 
for the use of the Countess of Northumberland. This brought 
forth the following article in a fashionable journal of the day : 

" To the Printer of the ' St. James's Chronicle.'' 35 

"Sir, — In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about 
two years ago, is a very beautiful little ballad, called A Friar 



124 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

of Orders Gray. The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that 
the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of Hamlet were parts of 
some ballad well known in Shakspeare's time, and from these 
stanzas, with the addition of one or two of his own to connect 
5 them, he has formed the above-mentioned ballad ; the subject 
of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire for her love 
who had been driven there by her disdain. She is answered by 
a friar that he is dead : — 

" ' No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's bed. 
10 He never will come again.' 

The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar endeavors 
to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain ; she 
expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of 
love, till at last the friar discovers himself : — ■ 

15 " ' And lo ! beneath this gown of gray 

Thy own true love appears.' 

" This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with the 
greatest tenderness, has the greatest simplicity ; yet, though 
this ballad was so recently published in the Aiicient Reliques, 
20 Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a poem called 
The Hermit, where the circumstances and catastrophe are exactly 
the same, only with this difference, that the natural simplicity 
and tenderness of the original are almost entirely lost in the 
languid smoothness and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which 
25 is as short of the merits of JNIr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity 
of negus is to the genuine flavor of champagne. 

" I am, sir, yours, &c., 

"Detector." 

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's constant perse- 1 

30 cutor, the malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following note ' 

to the editor : — 

" Sir, — As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper 
controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as con- 
cise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours that I 



CHAPTER XVII 125 

recommended Blaiiiville's Trauels° because I thought the book 
was a good one ; and I think so still. I said I was told by the 
bookseller that it was then first published; but in that it seems 
I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough 
to set me right. 5 

" Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken 
a ballad I published some time ago, from one by the ingenious 
Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance 
between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his bal- 
lad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years 10 
ago ; and he, as we both considered these things as trifles at 
best, told me, with his usual good-humor, the next time I saw 
him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of 
Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his 
little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such 15 
petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth printing ; and, were 
it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, 
the public should never have known that he owes me the hint 
of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learn- 
ing for communications of a much more important nature. 20 

" I am, sir, yours, &c., 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

The unexpected circulation of The Vicar of Wakefield enriched 
the publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no doubt thought 
himself entitled to participate in the profits of the repeated 25 
editions ; and a memorandum, still extant, shows that he drew 
upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of June, for fifteen 
guineas, but that the bill was returned dishonored. He con- 
tinued, therefore, his usual job-work for the booksellers, writing 
introductions, prefaces, and head and tail pieces for new 30 
works ; revising, touching up, and modifying travels and voy- 
ages ; making compilations of prose and poetry, and " building 
books " as he sportively termed it. These tasks required little 
labor or talent, but that taste and touch which are the magic of 
gifted minds. His terms began to be proportioned to his celeb- 35 
rity. If his price was at anytime objected to, "Why, sir," 
he would say, " it may seem large ; but then a man may be 
many years working in obscurity before his taste and reputa- 



126 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tion are fixed or estimated ; and then he is, as in other profes- 
sions, only paid for his previous labors."' 

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a dilferent 
walk of literature from any he had yet attempted. We have 
5 repeatedly adverted to his fondness for the drama ; he was a 
frequent attendant at the theatres; though, as we have shown, 
he considered them under gross mismanagement. He thought, 
too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who wrote for 
the stage. " A new species of dramatic composition," says he, 

10 in one of his essays, " has been introduced under the name of 
sentimental comedy, in which the virtues of private life are 
exhibited rather than the vices exposed; and the distresses 
rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the 
piece. In these plays almost all the characters are good, and 

15 exceedingly generous ; they are lavish enough of their tin 
money on the stage ; and though they want humor, have 
abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have 
faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only to pardon, but 
to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their 

20 hearts ; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, 
and the comedy aims at touching our passions, without the 
power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are likely 
to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage; for 
while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic 

25 muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected. Of this, 
however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by 
his profits. . . . 

" Humor at present seems to be departing from the stage ; 
and it will soon happen that our comic players will have noth- 

30 ing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It depends upon the 
audience whether they will actually drive those poor merry 
creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at the 
tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost ; 
and it will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too 

35 fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we should 
ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing." 

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. 
The comedy of The Clandestine Marriage, the joint produc- 
tion of Colman and Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth's inimi- 



CHAPTER XVIII 127 

table pictures of Marriage a la mode, had taken the town by 
storm, crowded the theatre with fashionable audiences, and 
formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Gold- 
smith's emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was 
in what he considered the legitimate line, totally different from 5 
the sentimental school ; it presented pictures of real life, deline- 
ations of character and touches of humor, in which he felt 
himself calculated to excel. The consequence was, that in the 
course of this year (1766) he commenced a comedy of the same 
class, to be entitled The Good-natured Man, at which he dili- 10 
gently wrought whenever the hurried occupation of "book- 
building" allowed him leisure. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Social Position of Goldsmith ; His Colloquial Contests with Johnson. — 
Anecdotes and Illustrations. 

The social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material 
change since the publication of The Traveller. Before that 
event he was but partially known as the author of some clever 15 
anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the 
club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected 
from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and 
become one of the lions of the day. The highest regions of 
intellectual society were now open to him ; but he was not 20 
prepared to move in them with confidence and success. Bally- 
mahon had not been a good school of manners at the outset of 
life ; nor had his experience as a " poor student " at colleges 
and medical schools contributed to give him the polish of 
society. He had brought from Ireland, as he said, nothing 25 
but his " brogue and his blunders," and they had never left 
him. He had travelled, it is true ; but the Continental tour 
which in those days gave the finishing grace to the education 
of a patrician youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little 
better than a course of literary vagabondizing. It had enriched 30 
his mind, deepened and widened the benevolence of his heart, 



128 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and filled his memory with enchanting pictures, but it had 
contributed little to disciplining him for the polite intercourse 
of the world. His life in London had hitherto been a struggle 
with soi-did cares and sad humiliations. " You scarcely can 
5 conceive," wrote he some time previously to his brother, " how 
much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study have 
worn me down." Several more years had since been added to 
the term during which he had trod the lowly walks of life. 
He had been a tutor, an apothecary's drudge, a petty physician 

10 of the suburbs, a bookseller's hack, drudging for daily bread. 
Each separate walk had been beset by its peculiar thorns and 
humiliations. It is wonderful how his heart retained its gen- 
tleness and kindness through all these trials; how his mind 
rose above the " meannesses of poverty," to which, as he says, 

15 he was compelled to submit; but it would be still more wonder- 
ful, had his manners acquired a tone corresponding to the in- 
nate grace and refinement of his intellect. He was near forty 
years of age when he published The Traveller, and was lifted 
by it into celebrity. As is beautifully said of him by one of 

20 his biographers, " he has fought his way to consideration and 
esteem ; but he bears upon him the scars of his twelve years' 
conflict; of the mean sorrows through which he has passed; 
and of the cheap indulgences he has sought relief and heljD 
from. There is nothing plastic in his nature now. His man- 

25 ners and habits are completely formed ; and in them any fur- 
ther success can make little favorable change, whatever it may 
effect for his mind or genius." ^ 

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make 
an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were 

30 now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an 
idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of his 
poetry. 

Even the literary club, and the circle of which it formed a 
part, after their surprise at the intellectual flights of which he 

35 showed himself capable, fell into a conventional mode of judg- 
ing and talking of him, and of placing him in absurd and 
whimsical points of view. His very celebrity operated here 
to his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison 

1 Forster's Goldstnith. 



CHAPTER XVIII 129 

with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given 
it a tone. Conversation was the great staple there, and of this 
Johnson was a master. He had been a reader and thinker from 
childhaod : his melancholy temperament, which unfitted him 
for the pleasures of youth, had made hiin so. For many years 5 
past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to consult 
in preparing his Dictionary, had stored an uncommonly re- 
tentive memory with facts on all kinds of subjects; making it 
a perfect colloquial armory. " He had all his life," says Bos- 
well, " habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial 10 
of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined himself 
as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to impart 
whatexer he knew in the most forcible language he could put 
it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any care- 
less expression to escape him, he had attained an extraordinary 15 
accuracy and command of language." 

His conversation in all companies, according to Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, was such as to secure him universal attention, some- 
thing above the usual colloquial style being always expected 
from him. 20 

"I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, "on 
what subject Johnson talks ; but I love better to hear him 
talk than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts or a 
new coloring." 

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. Percy. 25 
" The conversation of Johnson," says he, " is strong and clear, 
and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein 
and muscle is distinct and clear." 

Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's celebrity 
and his habits of intimacy brought him into continual compari- 30 
son ; can we wonder that he should appear to disadvantage ? 
Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious, such as John- 
son excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe task, and he 
never was good at a task of any kind. He had not, like John- 
son, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon ; nor a retentive 35 
memory to furnish them forth when wanted. He could not, 
like the great lexicographer, mould his ideas and balance his 
periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas, but it was apt 
to be hurried and confused ; and, as he said of himself, he had 

K 



130 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

contracted a hesitating and disagreeable manner of speaking. 
He used to say that he always argued best when he argued 
alone; that is to say, he could master a subject in his study, 
with his pen in his hand ; but when he came into company he 
5 grew confused, and was unable to talk about it. Johnson made 
a remark concerning him to somewhat of the same purport. 
"No man," said he, " is more foolish than Goldsmith when he 
has not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he has." Yet 
with all this conscious deficiency he was continually getting 

10 involved in colloquial contests with Johnson and other prime 
talkers of the literary circle. He felt that he had become a 
notoriety, that he had entered the lists and was expected to 
make fight ; so with that heedlessness which characterized him 
in everything else he dashed on at a venture ; trusting to chance 

15 in this as in other things, and hoj)ing occasionally to make a 
lucky hit. Johnson perceived his haphazard temerity, but gave 
him no credit for the real diffidence which lay at bottom. " The 
misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation," said he, " is this, he 
goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is 

20 great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous 
man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith ib is a 
pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to 
himself." And, on another occasion, he observes : " Goldsmith, 
rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be 

25 ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company 
with two founders, he would fall a-talking on the method of 
making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he 
did not know what metal a cannon is made of." And again: 
" Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine in con- 

30 versation ; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified 
when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, 
partly of chance ; a man may be beat at times by one who -has 
not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself 
against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who can- 

35 not spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man 
should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, 
though he has a hundred chances for him ; he can get but a 
guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. 
When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addi- 



CHAPTER XVIII lol 

tion to a man of his literary reputation ; if he does not get the 
better, he is miserably vexed." 

Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame 
in producing this vexation. " Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, 
" always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly when 5 
in company with people of any consequence ; always as if im- 
pressed with fear of disgrace ; and indeed well he might. I 
have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in 
Dr. Johnson's company." 

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. 10 
The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was 
still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argument 
went against him. He could not brook appearing to be worsted, 
but w<tlild attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling 
thunder of his periods, and, when that failed, would become 15 
downright insulting. Boswell called it " having recourse to 
some sudden mode of robust sophistry " ; but Goldsmith desig- 
nated it much more happily. " There is no arguing with John- 
son," said he, "/or, when Ms pistol misses Jire, he knocks you doivn 
with the hut-end of it." ^ 20 

In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell 
as triumphs of Dr. Johnson it really appears to us that Gold- 
smith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and espe- 
cially of the courtesy and good-nature. 

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof 25 
as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Gold- 
smith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom 
talked in character. "■ For instance," said he, " the fable of the 
little fishes, who saw birds fiy over their heads, and, envying 
them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill 30 
gonsists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then ob- 
serving that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, 
he immediately added, " Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy 
as you seem to think ; for, if you were to make little fishes talk, 
they would talk like whales." 35 

1 The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophis- 
try: — "Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, 
he stopped me thus — 'My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; 
you'll make nothing of it ; I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune."* 



132 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in 
society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of 
Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal 
pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a pun- 
5 ster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-hear and a he- 
hear; to which Goldsmith replied, " Johnson, to be sure, has a 
roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender 
heart. He has nothing of the hear hut the skin." 

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought 

10 of shining ; when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, 
or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and 
gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive 
his merits on these occasions. " For my part," said he, conde- 
scendingly, " I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk 

15 away carelessly ;" and many a much wiser man than Boswell 
delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous 
heart. In his happy moods. Goldsmith had an artless simplicity 
and buoyant good- humor, that led to a thousand amusing blun- 
ders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of 

20 his intimates ; yet in his most thoughtless gari'ulity there was 
occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond. 



CHAPTER XIX 



Social Resorts. — The Shilling Whist-Club. — A Practical Joke. — The 
Wednesday Chib. — The "Tun of Man." — The Pig-Butcher. — Tom 
King. — Hugh Kelly. — Glover and his Cliaracteristics. 

Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle 
occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial 
conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease 

25 and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social re- 
sorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by 
indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shil- 
ling whist-club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, 
near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club 

30 held there in old times, to which " rare Ben Jonson " had fur- 



CHAPTER XIX 133 

nished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremoni- 
ous kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists 
in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of these 
Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one night 
in a hackney-coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea 5 
instead of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there 
was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have 
the honesty to return the money. On the next club-evening he 
was told a person at the street-door wished to speak with him. 
He went forth, but soon returned with a radiant countenance. 10 
To his surjDrise and delight the coachman had actually brought 
back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of this 
unlook«d-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go 
unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no 
doubt increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed 15 
the Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. He was 
still chanting his praises, when one of the club requested a sight 
of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's confusion 
it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter 
which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on 20 
every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pre- 
tended coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was 
so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the 
evening. 

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday even- 25 
ings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. It was somewhat in 
the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons : songs, jokes, dramatic 
imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of humor 
formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuis- 
tr}'^, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here a huge 30 
"tun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight Gold- 
smith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and look- 
ing like a butt of it. Here, too, a w^ealthy pig-butcher, charmed, 
no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The Traveller, aspired 
to be on the most sociable footing with the author ; and here 35 
was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to consequence by 
his performance of Lord Ogieby in the new comedy of The 
Clandestine Marriage. 

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate 



134 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

author, who, as he became a khid of coinpetitor of Goldsmith's, 
deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about twenty- 
eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in 

. Dublin ; then writer to a London attorney ; then a Grub-Street 
5 hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he 
had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and in a paper 
called Thespis, in emulation of Churchill's Rosciad, had harassed 
many of the poor actors without mercy, and often without wit ; 
but had lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in consequence, 

10 took him into favor. He was the author of several works of 
superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to inflate his 
vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first 
introduction to Johnson ; after sitting a short time he got up 
to take leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be 

15 troublesome. "Not in the least, sir," said the surly moralist, 
" I had forgotten you were in the room." Johnson used to 
speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read. 
A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor country- 
men and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally 

20 been educated for the medical profession, but had taken in 
early life to the stage, though apparently without much success. 
While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest, to re- 
store life to the body of a malefactor, who had just been exe- 
cuted. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the 

25 number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned 
the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered his fortune 
as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead people to be 
restored to life in Ireland ; his practice did not equal his expec- 
tation, so he came to London, where he continued to dabble 

30 indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature. 
He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, 
where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story- 
telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of 
Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters of 

35 the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to pay 
his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse 
among those who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, 
of course, was one of the readiest. It was .through him that 
Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of which his 



CHAPTER XIX 135 

theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, however, 
was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared 
to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of some of the mem- 
bers of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and 
easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig-butcher. 5 
" Come, Noll," would he say, as he pledged him, ^' here's my 
service to you, old boy ! " 

Glover whispered to Goldsmith, that he " should not allow 
such liberties." " Let him alone," was the reply, " you'll see 
how civilly I'll let him down." After a time, he called out, 10 
with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B., I have the 
honor of drinking your good health." Alas ! dignity was not 
poor Gt)ldsmith's forte : he could keep no one at a distance. 
" Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce 
taking the pipe out of his mouth. " I don't see the effect of 15 
your reproof," whispered Glover. " I give it up," replied Gold- 
smith, with a good-humored shrug; "I ought to have known 
before now there is no putting a pig in the right way." 

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in 
these motley circles, observing, that, having been originally 20 
poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith, 
however, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for 
what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the 
artist ; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes 
in familiar life, the feeling with which " rare Ben Jonson " 25 
sought these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study 
Every Man in his Humor ° 

It was not always, however, that the humor of these associates 
was to his taste: as they became boisterous in their merriment, 
he was apt to become depressed. " The company of fools," 30 
says he, in one of his essays, " may at first make us smile, but 
at last never fails of making us melancholy." " Often he would 
become moody," says Glover, " and would leave the party 
abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune." * 

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a dif- 35 
ferent purpose : to commit to paper some scene or passage 
suggested for his comedy of Tlie Good-natured Man. The 
elaboration of humor is often a most serious task ; and we have 
never witnessed a ujore perfect picture of mental misery than 



136 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer — still, 
we hope, living — whom we found in the agonies of producing 
a farce which subsequently set the theatres in a roar. 



CHAPTER XX 



The Great Cham of Literature and the King. — Scene at Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's. — Goldsmith accused of Jealousy. — Negotiations with 
Garrick. — The Author and the Actor; Their Correspondence. 

The comedy of The Good-natured Man was completed by 
5 Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the perusal of 
Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by 
whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom 
halfway either in censure or applause, ^")ronounced it the best 
comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband 

10 and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately 
became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing 
the weight an inti'oduction from the Great Cham of literature 
would have with the public ; but circumstances occurred which 
he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from John- 

15 son's thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting the 
royal library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble 
collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted 
the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as 
he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by 

20 the entrance of the King (George IH.), then a young man, 
who sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. 
The conversation was varied and discursive, the King shifting 
from subject to subject according to his wont. " During the 
whole interview," says Boswell, " Johnson talked to his Majesty 

25 with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, 
with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which 
is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. ' I 
found his Majesty wished I should talk,' said he, ' and I made 
it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked 

30 to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a 



CHAPTER XX 137 

passion.' " It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial 
disputants, could he have often been under such decorous re- 
straint. Profoundly monarchical in his principles, he retired 
from the interview highly gratified with the conversation of 
the King and with his gracious behavior. " Sir," said he to 5 
the librarian, " they may talk of the King as they will, but he 
is the finest gentleman I have ever seen." — "Sir," said he sub- 
sequently to Bennet Langton, "his manners are those of as fine 
a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles 
the Second." 10 

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of 
royalty,-he was holding forth one day to a listening group at 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every par- 
ticular of this memorable conversation. Among other questions, 
the King had asked him whether he was writing anything. His 15 
reply was, that he thought he had already done his part as a 
writer, " I should have thought so too," said the King, " if 
you had not written so welU" — "No man," said Johnson, com- 
menting on this speech, " could have made a handsomer com- 
pliment ; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive." — 20 
"But did you make no reply to this high compliment?" asked 
one of the company. "No, sir," replied the profoundly defer- 
ential Johnson; "when the King had said it, it was to be so. 
It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign." 

During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth, 25 
Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in 
the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, 
in a moody fit of abstraction ; at length recollecting himself, 
he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell 
calls his usual "frankness and simplicity," — "Well, you ac-.30 
quitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have 
done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the 
whole of it," He afterwards explained his seeming inatten- 
tion by saying that his mind was completely occupied about 
his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of 35 
royal excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired 
prologue. 

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell 
presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected, and 



138 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

attributes it to jealousy. " It was strongly suspected," says he, 
"that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular 
honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the little- 
ness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to 
5 Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the 
honor paid to Dr. Johnson. 

The Good-natured Man was now ready for performance, but 
the question was, how to get it upon the stage. The affairs 
of Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown 

10 into confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. 
Drury Lane was under the management of Garrick ; but a 
feud, it will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, 
from the animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement 
of theatrical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the 

15 poet his vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. 
Times, however, were changed. Goldsmith, when that feud 
took place, was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to 
fame, and of no circulation in society. JSTow he had become 
a literary lion ; he was a member of the Literary Club ; he was 

20 the associate of Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other 
magnates, — in a word, he had risen to consequence in the 
public eye, and of course was of consequence in the eyes of 
David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples 
of pride existing between the author and actor, and think- 

25 ing it a pity that two men of such congenial talents, and who 
might be so serviceable to each other, should be kept asunder 
by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring tliem 
together. The meeting took place in Reynolds's house in 
Leicester Square. Garrick, however, could not entirely put oft' 

30 the mock majesty of the stage ; he meant to be civil, but he was 
rather too gracious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his 
Life of Garrick, gives an amusing picture of the coming to- 
gether of these punctilious parties. " The manager," says he, 
" was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps 

35 more ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author 
than became a man of his prudence ; Goldsmith was, on his 
side, as fully persuaded of his own importance and independent! 
greatness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the| 
complimentary language paid to a successful patentee and 



CHAPTER XX 139 

admired actor, expected that the writer would esteem the 
patronage of his play a favor; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of 
kindness in a bargain that was intended to be of mntiial ad- 
vantage to both parties, and in this he was certainly justifia- 
ble ; Mr. Garrick could reasonably expect no thanks for the 5 
acting a new play, which he would have rejected if he had not 
been convinced it would have amply rewarded his pains and 
expense. I believe the manager was willing to accept the play, 
but he wished to be courted to it ; and the Doctor was not dis- 
posed to purchase his friendship by the resignation of his sin- 10 
cerity." They separated, however, with an understanding on 
the parf of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The con- 
duct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any 
lingerings of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in 
matters of the kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He 15 
did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and 
avowed that opinion to Reynolds and Johnson, — but hesitated 
to say as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his 
feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result of this 
want of decision and frankness ; repeated interviews and some 20 
correspondence took place without bringing matters to a point, 
and in the meantime the theatrical season passed away. 

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously 
by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon 
the manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance 25 
him forty pounds upon a note of the younger Newbery. Gar- 
rick readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain im- 
portant alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its success ; 
these were indignantly rejected by the author, but pertinaciously 
insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed • to leave the 30 
matter to the arbitration of Whitehead," the laureate, who 
officiated as his "reader" and elbow-critic. Goldsmith was 
more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, which 
was only calmed by the interference of Burke and Reynolds. 

Just at this time, order came out of confusion in the affairs 35 
of Covent Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and 
Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of The Clan- 
destine Marriage, the former had become manager and part- 
proprietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a 



140 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

powerful competition with his former colleague. On hearing 
of this, Goldsmith made overtures to Colman ; who, without 
waiting to consult his fellow-proprietors, who were absent, gave 
instantly a favorable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast of 
5 this warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and 
objections of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the 
discretion of Colman. " Dear sir," says he, in a letter dated 
Temple Garden Court, July 9th, " I am very much obliged to 
you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your tenderness 

10 in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play 
is liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that 
it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing them. 
If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by putting the 
piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of directing me 

15 how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness to me. 
And indeed, though most probably this be the last I shall ever 
write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction that poets 
for the future are likely to have a protector who declines tak- 
ing advantage of their dreadful situation — and scorns that 

20 importance which may be acquired by trifling with their 
anxieties." 

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Litch- 
field, informing him of his having transferred his piece to 
Covent Garden, for which it had been originally written, and 

25 by the patentee of which it was claimed, observing, " As I 
found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I com- 
plied with his desire. ... I am extremely sorry that you 
should think me warm at our last meeting ; your judgment 
certainly ought to be free, especially in a matter which must 

30 in some measure concern your own credit and interest. I 
assure you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this 
or any other account, but am, with an high opinion of your 
abilities, and a very real esteem, sir, your most obedient hum- 
ble servant. Oliver Goldsmith." 

35 In his reply, Garrick observed, " I was, indeed, much hurt 
that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and 
friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former 
misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had 
never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now 



CHAPTER XXI 141 

repeat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you 
possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business, 
and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men 
of genius ; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason 
to change his previous friendly disposition towards me, as I 
shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how 
much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. Gar- 
rick." 



CHAPTER XXI 



More Hack- Authorship. — Tom Da vies and the Roman History, — Can- 
onbury Castle. — Political Authorship. — Pecuniary Temptation. — 
Death of Newbery the Elder. 

Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be performed, 
it could not be brought out before Christmas ; in the mean time 10 
he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort to literary jobs 
for his daily support. These obtained for him petty occasional 
sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, from the elder New- 
bery, for an historical compilation ; but this scanty rill of quasi 
patronage, so sterile in its products, was likely soon to cease ; 15 
Newbery being too ill to attend to business, and having to trans- 
fer the whole management of it to his nephew. 

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius,° sometime 
bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed 
that he should undertake an -easy popular history of Rome in 20 
two volumes. An arrangement was soon made. Goldsmith 
undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two hun- 
dred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with 
cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during 
the summer months, where he might alternate his literary 25 
labors with strolls about the green fields. " Merry Islington " 
was again his resort, but he now aspired to better quarters than 
formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied occasionally by 
Mr. N"ewbery, in Canonbury House, or Castle, as it is popu- 
larly called. This had been a hunting-lodge of Queen Eliza- 30 
beth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks and forests. 



142 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

In Goldsmith's day, nothing remained of it but an old brick 
tower ; it was still in the country amid rural scenery, and was a 
favorite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and others of the 
literary order.^ A number of these he had for fellow-occupants 

5 of the castle ; and they formed a temporary club, which held its 
meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the Islington lower road ; 
and here he presided in his own genial style, and was the life 
and delight of the company. 

The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some 

10 years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The 
apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, con- 
sisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with panelled 
wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude 
of the place were still attractive. It w^as one of the resorts of 

15 citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top of 
the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitring the city 
through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the gardens 
pf the White Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium, where Gold- 
smith used to figure in the humbler days of his fortune. In the 

20 first edition of his Essays he speaks of a stroll in these gardens, 
where he at that time, no doubt, thought himself in perfectly 
genteel society. After his rise in the world, however, he became 
too knowing to speak of such plebeian haunts. In a new edi- 
tion of his Essays, therefore, the White Conduit House and its 

25 gardens disappear, and he speaks of " a stroll in the Park." 

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth by 
the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit was 
subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of Lord 
North's administration, a time of great political excitement. 

30 The public mind was agitated by the question of American taxa- 

1 See on the distant slope, majestic shows 
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile 
To various fates assigned ; and where by turns 
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd ; 
Thither, in latter days, hath genius fled 
From yonder city, to respire and die. 
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned 
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. 
There learned Chambers treasured lore for mew, 
And Newbery there his A-B-C's for babes. 



CHAPTER XXI 143 

tion, and other questions of like irritating tendency. " Junius " 
and Wilkes° and other powerful writers were attacking the admin- 
istration with all their force ; Grub Street was stirred up to its 
lowest depths ; inflammatory talent of all kinds was in full ac- 
tivity, and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, lampoons, 5 
and libels of the grossest kinds. The ministry were looking 
anxiously round for literary sup23ort. It was thought that the pen 
of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hospitable friend 
and countryman, Robert Nugent, politically known as Squire 
Gawky, had come out strenuously for colonial taxation ; had been 10 
selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and raised to the 
rank of Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare. His example, it was 
thougM, would be enough of itself to bring Goldsmith into the 
ministerial ranks ; and then what writer of the day w^as proof 
against a full purse or a pension ? Accordingly one Parson 15 
Scott, chaplain to Lord Sandwich, and author of Anti-Sejanvs, 
Panurge, and other political libels in support of the administra- 
tion, was sent to negotiate with the poet, who at this time was 
returned to town. Dr. Scott, in after-years, when his political 
subserviency had been rewarded by two fat crown-livings, used 20 
to make what he considered a good story out of this embassy 
to the poet. " I found him," said he, "in a miserable suit of 
chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority : I told 
how I was empow^ered to pay most liberally for his exertions ; 
and, would you believe it ! he was so absurd as to say, ' I can 25 
earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any 
party ; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me ; ' 
— and so I left him in his garret ! " Who does not admire the 
sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith toiling in his garret for 
nine guineas the job, and smile with contempt at the indignant 30 
wonder of the political divine, albeit his subserviency was repaid 
by two fat crown -livings? 

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend, though 
frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picture-book renown, closed 
his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him as the friend of 35 
all mankind; he certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He 
coined the brains of his authors in the times of their exigency, 
and made them pay dear for the plank put out to keep them 
from drowning. It is not likely his death caused much lamen- 



144 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tation among the scribbling tribe ; we may express' decent re- 
spect for the memory of the just, but we shed tears only at the 
grave of the generous. 



CHAPTER XXII 



Theatrical Manoeuvring. — The Comedy of False Delicacy. — Fivst 
Performance of The Good-natured Man. — Conduct of Johnson. — 
Conduct of the Author. — Intermeddling of the Press. 

The comedy of The Good-natured Man was doomed to experi- 

5 ence delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, notwith- 
standing his professions, had still a lurking grudge against the 
author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart him in his 
theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build 
up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the Wednesday 

10 club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy called 
False Delicacy, in which were embodied all the meretricious 
qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, though he had 
decried that school, and had brought out his comedy of The 
Clandestine Marriage in opposition to it, now lauded False 

15 Delicacy to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at Drury 
Lane with all possible stage-effect. He even went so far as to 
write a prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up some parts 
of the dialogue. He had become reconciled to his former col- 
league, Colman, and it is intimated that one condition in the 

20 treaty of peace between these potentates of the realms of paste- 
board (equally x^rone to play into each other's hands with the 
confederate potentates on the great theatre of life) was, that 
Goldsmith's play should be kept back until Kelly's had been 
brought forward. 

25 In the mean time the poor author, little dreaming of the 
deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the ap- 
pointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of his 
play; while False Delicacy was brought out at Drury Lane 
(January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial manage- 

30 ment. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo ; the news- 



CHAPTER XXII 145 

papers vied with each other in their venal praises, and night 
after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph. 

While False Delicacy was thus borne on the full tide of ficti- 
tious prosperity, The Good-natured Man was creeping through 
the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the rival 5 
piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. Gold- 
smith went about with a face full of anxiety ; Colman's hopes 
in the piece declined at each rehearsal ; as to his fellow-pro- 
prietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All 
the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned 10 
Shuter, an excellent low comedian, and a, pretty actress named 
Miss Walford ; both of whom the poor author ever afterward 
held ifl grateful recollection. 

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing casti- 
gator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with 15 
that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in 
time of need. He attended the rehearsals ; he furnished the 
prologue according to promise ; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any 
doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound 
counsel, and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand. 20 
Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, 
and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unusual care. Ever 
since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved in his 
wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse him of 
being shabby in his appearance ; he rather went to the other ex- 25 
treme. On the present occasion there is an entry in the books 
of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of " Tyrian bloom, 
satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, £8 2s. 7d." Thus 
magnificently attired, he attended the theatre and watched the 
reception of the play, and the eifect of each individual scene, 30 
with that vicissitude of feeling incident to his mercurial nature. 

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered 
by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in Hamlet, 
seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. Some of 
the scenes met with great applause, and at such times Goldsmith 35 
was highly elated ; others went off coldly, or there were slight 
tokens of disapprobation, and then his sjjirits would sink. The 
fourth act saved the piece; for Shuter, who had the main comic 
character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his execu- 



146 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tion of the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter, that he 
drew down thunders of applause. On his coming behind the 
scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing heart; 
declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the character, and 
5 made it almost as new to him as to any of the audience. 

On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were 
disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a 
failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theatre with his towering hopes 
completely cut down. He endeavored to hide his mortification, 

10 and even to assume an air of unconcern while among his asso- 
ciates ; but the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in 
whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed unlimited 
confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to an almost 
childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown no want of 

15 sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disap- 
pointment of over-rated expectations to warrant such ungoverned 
emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly 
affectation, saying that " ^N'o man should be expected to sym- 
pathize with the sorrows of vanity." 

20 When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his 
usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement 
to his friends. Dining one day, in company with Dr. Johnson, 
at the chaplain's table at St. James's Palace, he entertained the 
company with a particular and comic account of all his feelings 

25 on the night of representation, and his despair when the piece 
was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary Club ; 
chatted gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss ; and, to give a 
greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite song about an 
old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the 

30 moon. ... " All this while," added he, " I was suffering hor- 
rid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily believe 
it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively 
ill; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; so 
they never, perceived my not eating, nor suspected the anguish 

35 of my heart ; but when all were gone except Johnson here, I 
burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write 
again." 

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike 
self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come 



CHAPTER XXII 147 

to a pause, " All this, Doctor," said he, dryly, " I thought had 
been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not 
have said anything about it for the world." But Goldsmith 
had no secrets : his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all 
thrown to the surface ; his heart was really too guileless and 5 
innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It is too often 
the false designing man that is guarded in his conduct and 
never offends proprieties. 

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conver- 
sation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a 10 
maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. 
" Men of the world," says he in one of the papers of the Bee, 
" maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to express 
our wants as to conceal them," How often is this quoted as 
one of the subtle remarks of the fine-witted Talleyrand ! ° 15 

The Good-natured Man was performed for ten nights in 
succession; the third, sixth, and ninth nights were for the 
author's benefit ; the fifth night it was commanded by their 
Majesties ; after this it was played occasionally, but rarely, 
having always pleased more in the closet than on the stage. 20 

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid 
of character, and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet it 
is an instance how an inferior production, by dint of puffing 
and trumpeting, may be kept up for a time on the surface of 
popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. What had been done 25 
for False Delicacy on the stage was continued by the press. 
The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it upon 
the town. They announced that the first impression of three 
thousand copies was exhausted before two o'clock on the day of 
publication; four editions, amounting to ten thousand copies were 30 
sold in the course of the season ; a public breakfast was given to 
Kelly at the Chapter Coffee-House, and a piece of plate presented 
to him by the publishers. The comparative merits of the two 
plays were continually subjects of discussion in green-rooms, 
coft'ee-houses, and other places where theatrical questions were 35 
discussed. 

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that " viper of the press," 
endeavored on this, as on many other occasions, to detract from 
his well-earned fame ; the poet was excessively sensitive to 



148 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

these attacks, and had not the art and self-command to conceal 
his feelings. 

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had 
seen the manuscript of Goldsmith's play, while in the hands of 
5 Garrick or elsewhere, and had borrowed some of the situa- 
tions and sentiments. Some of the wags of the day took a 
mischievous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the 
two authors. Goldsmith became nettled, though he could 
scarcely be deemed jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke 

10 disparagingly, though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly's play : the 
latter retorted. Still, when they met one day behind the scenes 
of Covent Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, 
congratulated Kelly on his success. " If I thought you sin- 
cere, Mr. Goldsmith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should 

15 thank you." Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill- 
will, and soon laughed at this unworthy rivalship; but the 
jealousy and envy awakened in Kelly's mind long continued. 
He is even accused of having given vent to his hostility by 
anonymous attacks in the newspapers, the basest resource of 

20 dastardly and malignant spirits ; but of this there is no positive 
proof. 



CHAPTEK XXIII 



Burning the Candle at both Ends. — Fine Apartments. — Fine Furni- 
ture. — Fine Clothes. — Fine Acquaintances. — Shoemaker's Holiday 
and Jolly-Pigeon Associates. — Peter Barlow, Glover, and the Hamp- 
stead Hoax. — Poor Friends among great Acquaintances. 

The profits resulting from The Good-natured Man were 
beyond any that Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. 
He netted about four hundred pounds from the theatre, and 
25 one hundred pounds from his publisher. 

Five hundred pounds ! and all at one miraculous draught ! 

It appeared to him wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened 

his heart and hand, and led him into all kinds of extravagance. 

The first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for a box- 

30 ticket for his benefit, when The Good-natured Man was to be 



CHAPTER XXIII 149 

performed. The next was an entire change in his domicil. 
The shabby lodgings with Jeffs, the butler, in which he had 
been worried by Johnson's scrutiny, were now exchanged for 
chambers more becoming a man of his ample fortune. The 
apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of 5 
No. 2 Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending 
the staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the 
Temple garden. The lease he purchased for £400, and then 
went on to furnish his rooms with mahogany sofas, card-tables, 
and bookcases ; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets. 10 
His awkward little person was also furnished out in a style 
befitting his apartment ; for, in addition to his suit of " Tyrian 
bloom, ^atin grain," we find another charged about this time, 
in the books of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being 
" lined with silk and furnished with gold buttons." Thus 15 
lodged and thus arrayed, he invited the visits of his most 
aristocratic acquaintances, and no longer quailed beneath the 
courtly eye of Beauclerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Rey- 
nolds, Percy, Bickerstaff, and other friends of note ; and sup- 
per-parties to young folks of both sexes. These last were 20 
preceded by round games of cards, at which there was more 
laughter than skill, and in which the sport was to cheat each 
other; or by romping games of forfeits and blind-man's-buff, 
at which he enacted the lord of misrule. Blackstone, whose 
chambers were immediately below, and who was studiously 25 
occupied on his Commentaries ° used to complain of the racket 
made overhead by his revelling neighbor. 

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, composed 
of four or five of his "Jolly-Pigeon " friends, to enjoy what he 
humorously called a " shoemaker's holiday." These would 30 
assemble at his chambers in the morning, to partake of a plen- 
tiful and rather expensive breakfast; the remains of which, 
with his customary benevolence, he generally gave to some 
poor woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party would 
set out on foot, in high spirits, making extensive rambles by 35 
foot-paths and green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth, Chelsea, 
Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleasant resort, within 
a few miles of London. A simple but gay and heartily relished 
dinner, at a country inn, crowned the excursion. In the even- 



150 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ing they strolled back to town, all the better in health and 
spirits for a day spent in rnral and social enjoyment. Occa- 
sionally, when extravagantly inclined, they adjourned from diii-^ 
ner to drink tea at the White Conduit House ; and, now and then, 
5 concluded their festive day by supping at the Grecian or Tem- 
ple Exchange Coffee-Houses, or at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet 
Street. The whole expenses of the day never exceeded a 
crown, and were offcener from three and sixpence to four shil- 
lings ; for the best part of their entertainment, sweet air and 

10 rural scenes, excellent exercise and joyous conversation, cost 
nothing. 

One of Goldsmith's humble companions, on these excursions, 
was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Barlow, whose quaint 
peculiarities afforded much amusement to the company. Peter 

15 was poor but punctilious, squaring his expenses according to 
his means. He always wore the same garb ; fixed his regular 
expenditure for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to him- 
self, he never exceeded, but which he always insisted on pay- 
ing. His oddities always made him a welcome companion on 

20 the " shoemaker's holidays." The dinner, on these occasions, 
generally exceeded considerably his tariff ; he put down, how- 
ever, no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up 
the difference. 

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such occasions, 

25 he was content to "pay the shot," was his countryman Glover, 
of whom mention has already been made as one of the wags 
and sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a prime 
mimic at the Wednesday Club. 

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsical story 

30 of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, in the course of 
a rural excursion in the vicinity of London. They had dined 
at an inn on Hampstead Heights, and were descending the 
hill, when, in passing a cottage, they saw through the open 
window a party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigued, cast a 

35 wistful glance at the cheerful tea-table. " How I should like 
to be of that party," exclaimed he. "Nothing more easy," 
replied Glover ; " allow me to introduce you." So saying, he 
entered the house with an air of the most perfect familiarity, 
though an utter stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting 



CHAPTER XXIII 151 

Goldsmith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of 
the family. The owner of the house rose on the entrance of 
the strangers. The undaunted Glover shook hands with him 
in the most cordial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the 
company who had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, 5 
muttered something like a recognition, and forthwith launched 
into an amusing story, invented at the moment, of something 
which he pretended had occurred upon the road. The host 
supposed the new-comers were friends of his guests ; the guests, 
that they were friends of the host. Glover did not give them 10 
time to find out the truth. He followed one droll story with 
another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept 
the coqjpany in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted ; an hour 
went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of 
which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the 15 
house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and his 
company to compare notes, and to find out what an impudent 
intrusion they had experienced. 

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith 
when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and 20 
that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first im- 
pulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from all 
participation in the jest ; but a few words from his free-and- 
easy companion dissuaded him. "Doctor," said he, coolly, 
" we are unknown ; you quite as much as I ; if you return and 25 
tell the story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow; nay, upon 
recollection, I remember in one of their offices the face of that 
squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was treasuring 
up my stories for future use, and we shall be sure of being ex- 
posed ; let us therefore keep our own counsel." 30 

This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with 
rich dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversa- 
tion, and mimicking, in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, 
surprise, and subsequent indignation of Goldsmith. 

It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts; nor 35 
a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith some- 
times found his old friends of the " Jolly-Pigeon " order turning 
up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new 
aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of 



152 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in 
the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his squali'l 
quarters in Green Arbor Court. " How do you think he served 
me ? " said he to a friend. " Why, sir, after staying away two 
5 years, he came one evening into my chambers, half drunk, as 1 
was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc and Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe^; and sitting himself down, with most intol- 
erable assurance inquired after my health and literary pursuits, 
as if we were upon the most friendly footing. I was at first so 

10 much ashamed of ever having known such a fellow, that I 
stifled my resentment, and drew him into a conversation on 
such topics as I knew he could talk upon ; in which, to do him 
justice, he acquitted himself very reputably; when all of a sud- 
den, as if recollecting something, he pulled two papers out of 

15 his pocket, which he presented to me with great ceremony, say- 
ing, ' Here, my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound of tea, and 
a half pound of sugar, I have brought you ; for though it is not 
in my power at present to pay you the two guineas you so 
generously lent me, you, nor any man else, shall ever have it to 

20 say that I want gratitude.' This," added Goldsmith, " was 
too much. I could no longer keep in my feelings, but de- 
sired him to turn out of my chambers directly ; which he very 
coolly did, taking up his tea and sugar; and I never saw him 
afterwards." 



CHAPTER XXIV 



Reduced again to Book-building. — Rural Retreat at Shoemaker's 
Paradise. — Death of Henry Goldsmitli ; Tributes to his Memory in 
The Deserted Village. 

25 The heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as m.ay easily be sup- 
posed, soon brought him to the end of his '■'■ prize-money," but 
when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining ad- 
vances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the 
confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts 

30 which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a tran- 
sient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of his 



CHAPTER XXIV 153 

life ; so that the success of The Good-natured Man may be 
said to have been ruinous to him. 

He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-build- 
iiig, and set about his History of Rome, undertaken for 
Davies. 5 

It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer- 
time, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged 
to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country 
lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or 
Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and months 10 
together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his 
room, at other times he would sti'oll out along the lanes and 
hedgerows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down thoughts 
to be expanded and connected at home. His summer retreat 
for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a garden, 15 
pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the Edge- 
ware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund 
Botts, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the 
Temple, having rooms immediately opposite him on the same 
floor. They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was one^ 
of those with whom Goldsmith now^ and then took the friendly 
but pernicious liberty of borrowing. 

The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoe- 
maker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain o. 
half an acre with statues, and jets, and all the decorations of iv 
landscape gardening; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave 
it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow- 
occupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval 
of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social 
dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one 30 
occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the 
table, they came near breaking their necks on their way home- 
ward by driving against a post on the side-walk, w^hile Botts 
was proving by the force of legal eloquence that they were in 
the very middle of the broad Edgeware road. 35 

In the course of this summer. Goldsmith's career of gayety 
was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the 
death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age. 
He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his 



154 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaffected 
piety ; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of in- 
dustry and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting himself 
in all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the 
6 mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and ven- 
erated him is evident in all his letters and throughout his 
works ; in which his brother continually forms his model for 
an exemplification of all the most endearing of the Christian 
virtues; yet his affection at his death was embittered by the 

10 fear that he died with some doubt upon his mind of the warmth 
of his affection. Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in 
Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his influence 
with the great, which they supposed to be all-powerful, in favor 
of Henry, to obtain for him church-preferment. He did exert 

15 himself as far as his diffident nature would permit, but without 
success ; we have seen that, in the case of the Earl of Northum- 
berland, when, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, that nobleman 
proffered him his patronage, he asked nothing for himself, 
but only spoke on behalf of his brother. Still some of Ids 

20 friends, ignorant of what he had done and of how little he was 
able to do, accused him of negligence. It is not likely, how- 
ever, that his amiable and estimable brother joined in the 
^iccusation. 
^ To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days 

^5 awakened by the death of this loved companion of his child- 
hood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in 
his Deserted Village. Much of that poem we are told was com- 
posed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about the 
green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighborhood ; 

30 and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English land- 
scape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy. It was 
in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender regret was 
half mingled with self-upbraiding, that he poured forth that 
homage of the heart rendered as it were at the grave of his 

35 brother. The picture of the village pastor in this poem, which 
we have already hinted was taken in part from the character of 
his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother 
Henry ; for the natures of the father and son seem to have 
been identical. In the following lines, however, Goldsmith 



CHAPTER XXV 155 

evidently contrasted the quiet settled life of his brother, passed 
at home in the benevolent exercise of the Christian duties, with 
his own restless vagrant career : — 

" Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." 5 

To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expia- 
tory spirit ; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, 
he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which 
he had not been able to practise : — 

" At church with meek and unaffected grace, 10 

His looks adorn 'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with douiile sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 15 

Even children follow'd, with endearing wile. 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile ; 
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd. 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 20 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. .» 

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 

To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 

He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 

Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.'' 25 



CHAPTER XXV 



Dinner at Bickerstaff 's. — Hiff ernan and his Impecuniosity. — Kenrick's 
Epigram. — Johnson's Consolation. — Goldsmith's Toilet. — The 
Bloom-colored Coat. — New Acquaintances ; The Hornecks. — A 
Touch of Poetry and Passion. — The Jessamy Bride. 

In October, Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his 
usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinnei given by his coun- 
tryman, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of Love in a Village, Lionel 



156 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

and Clarissa, and other successful dramatic pieces. The dinner 
was to be followed by the reading by Bickerstaff of a new play. 
Among the guests was one Paul Hiifernan, likewise an Irish- 
man ; somewhat idle and intemperate ; who lived nobody knew 
5 how nor where, sponging wherever he had a chance, and often 
of course upon Groldsmith, who was ever the vagabond's friend, 
or rather victim. Hiffernan was something of a physician, and 
elevated the emptiness of his purse into the dignity of a disease, 
which he termed impecuniositi/, and against which he claimed a 

10 right to call for relief from the healthier purses of his friends. 
He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic 
critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the din- 
ner and reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged his 
senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his 

15 play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored out- 
right. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read in a 
more elevated tone. The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan 
snored ; until the author came to a pause. " Never mind the 
brute, Bick, but go on," cried Goldsmith. " He would have 

20 served Homer just so if he were here and reading his own 
works." 

Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdot^e in 
the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his 
countryman Bickerstaff to Homer : — 

25 " What are your Bretons, Komans, Grecians, 

Compared with thorough-bred Milesians ! 
Step mto Griffin's shop, he'll tell ye 
Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly ... 
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other, 

30 Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster-brother." 

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under 
an attack of this kind. " Never mind, sir," said he to Gold- 
smith, when he saw that he felt the sting. " A man whose 
business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. 
35 Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock ; if it be struck only at one end of 
the room, it will soon fall to the ground ; to keep it up, it must 
be struck at both ends." 

Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in 



CHAPTER XXV 157 

high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day; a few 
years afterwards he was obliged to fly the country to escape the 
punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great 
astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled. 
" Why, sir ? " said Thrale, " he had long been a suspected man." 5 
Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent 
brewer, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply. " By 
those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, " dirt will 
sometimes be seen ; I hope I see things from a greater 
distance." 10 

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the in- 
creased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his elevation 
into polite society. " He was fond," says one of his contempo- 
raries,*" of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest 
apparel of the day, to which was added a bag- wig and sword." 15 
Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the 
Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the 
amusement of his acquaintances. 

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits forever 
famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in this same 20 
year, gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, 
Miu-phy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt 
to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were taking 
their seats at table ; but on this occasion he was unusually early. 
While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, " he strutted about," 25 
says Boswell, " bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously 
vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly *prone to such impres- 
sions. ' Come, come,' said Garrick, ' talk no more of that. You 
are perhaps the worst — eh, eh?' Goldsmith was eagerly at- 
tempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing 30 
ironically. ' Nay, you will always look like a gentleman ; but I 
am talking of your being well or ill dressed.'' ' Well, let me tell 
you,' said Goldsmith, ' when the tailor brought home my bloom- 
colored coat, he said, " Sir, I have a favor to beg of you ; when 
anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention 35 
John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane." ' ' Why, sir,' cried 
Johnson, ' that was because he knew the strange color would 
attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, 
and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a color.' " 



158 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part 
of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the 
kind from strangers. As he v/as one day walking the Strand 
in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merri- 
5ment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to 
" look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to 
the quick. Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers-by 
to be on their guard aga^inst " that brace of disguised pick- 
pockets," — his next was to step into the middle of the [street, 

10 where there was room for action, half-draw his sword, and 
beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow 
him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not 
anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such an 
extreme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his 

15 brother-wag amid the hootings of the spectators. 

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell and 
others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not understand 
the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, arose, 
we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It was 

20 from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had 
been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood, by the 
sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper 
into it by rude speeches made to him in every step of his 
struggling career, until it had become a constant cause of awk- 

25wardness and embarrassment. This he had experienced the 
more sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite 
society ; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress 
to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may use the phrase, 
which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a little 

30 self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may, 
perhaps, have been because he felt as if he had achieved a 
triumph over his ugliness. 

There were circumstances too, about the time of which we 
are treating, which may have rendered Goldsmith more than 

35 usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently 
made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devon- 
shire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain 
Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years 



CHAPTER XXV 



159 



of age; and an only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his 
sisters playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having 
lately entered the Guards. The daughters are described as 
uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. 
Catharine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of 5 
Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her disposition. 
She was engaged to Henry William Bunbury, second son of a 
Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were 
yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name among her 
friends of the Jessamy Bride.° This family was prepared, by 10 
their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appreciate the 
merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen 
friend of the eminent painter; and Miss Reynolds, as we have 
shown* ever since she had heard his poem of TJie Traveller read 
aloud, had ceased to consider him ugl}^ The Hornecks were 15 
equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his works. 
On becoming acquainted with him, too, they were delighted 
with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant good-nature, and his 
innate benevolence; and an enduring intimacy soon sprang 
up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met with 20 
polite society, with which he was perfectly at home, and by 
which he was fully appreciated ; for once he had met with 
lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. 
A proof of the easy and playful terms in which he was with 
them, remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the 25 
following was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their 
family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which 
Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman° were to be present. The 
young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and 
their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the 30 
liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last 
moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following 
reply ; on the top of which was scrawled, " This is a poem ! 
This is a copy of verses ! " 



" Your mandate I got, 
You may all go to pot ; 
Had your senses been right, 
You'd have sent before night : 
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, 



And Baker and his bit, 
And Kauffman beside, 
And the Jessamy Bride, 
With the rest of the crew, 
The Reynoldses too, 



35 



160 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



Little Comedy's face, 
And the Captain in Lace, — 
Tell each other to rue 
Your Devonshire crew, 
For seiidina: so late 



To one of my state. 
But 'tis Reynolds's way 
From wisdom to stray, 
And Angelica's whim 
To befrolic like him : 



But alas! your good worships, how could they he wiser, 
When both have been si^oil'd in to-day's Advertiser ? " i 

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith 
with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a vein, 

10 gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and that 
he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger sister. 
This may account for some of the phenomena which about this 
time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the first 
year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell-tale 

15 book of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays entries of four 
or five full suits, besides separate articles of dress. Among 
the items we find a green half-trimmed frock and breeches, 
lined with silk ; a queen's-blue dress suit ; a half -dress suit of 
ratteen, lined with satin; a pair of silk stocking-breeches, and 

20 another pair of a bloom-color. Alas ! poor Goldsmith ! how 
much of this silken finery was dictated, not by vanity, but 
humble consciousness of thy defects; how much of it was to 
atone for the uncouthness of thy person, and to win favor in 
the eyes of the Jessamy Bride ! 

1 The following lines had appeared in that day's Advertiser, on the 
portrait of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauff man : — 

" While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, 
Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face ; 
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, 
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away. 
But when the likeness she hath done for thee, 
O Reynolds ! with astonishment we see, 
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, 
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none, 
And thou art rivalled by thyself alone." 



CHAPTER XXVI 161 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Goldsmith in the Temple. — Judge Day and Grattan. — Labor and Dis- 
sipation. — Publication of the Roman History; Opinions of it. — 
History of Animated Nature. — Temple Eookery. —Anecdotes of a 
Spider. 

In the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied himself at his 
quarters in the Temple, slowly " building up " his Roman His- 
tory. We have pleasant views of him in this learned and half- 
cloistered retreat of wits and lawyers and legal students, in the 
reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in his ad- 5 
vance(f age delighted to recall the days of his youth, when he 
w^as a templar, and to speak of the kindness with which he 
and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the poet. " I 
was just arrived from college," said he, "full freighted with 
academic gleanings, and our author did not disdain to receive 10 
from me some opinions and hints towards his Greek and Roman 
histories. Being then a young man, I felt much flattered by the 
notice of so celebrated a person. He took great delight in the 
conversation of Grattan, whose brilliancy in the morning of life 
furnished full earnest of the unrivalled splendor which awaited 15 
his meridian; and finding us dwelling together in Essex Court, 
near himself, where he frequently visited my immortal friend, 
his warm heart became naturally prepossessed towards the 
associate of one whom he so much admired." 

The Judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of 20 
Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style to those already fur- 
nished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House, then 
the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He 
delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening parties 
at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cordial and 25 
unostentatious hospitality. " Occasionally," adds the Judge, 
" he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither of which 
he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing his money, 
he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, he 
would fling his cards upon the floor and exclaim, ' Byefore George, 30 
I ought forever to renounce thee, tickle, faithless fortune.' " 

M 



162 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

The Judge was aware, at the time, that all the learned labor 
of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman History was mere hack- 
work to recruit his exhausted finances. " His purse replen- 
ished," adds he, " by labors of this kind, the season of relaxation 
5 and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres, Ranelagh, 
Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amusement. When- 
ever his funds were dissipated, — and they fled more rapidly 
from being the dupe of many artful persons, male and female, 
who practised upon his benevolence, — he returned to his liter- 

10 ary labors, and shut himself up from society to provide fresh 
matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself." 

How completely had the young student discerned the char- 
acteristics of poor, genial, generous, drudging, holiday-loving 
Goldsmith ; toiling, that he might play ; earning his bread by 

15 the sweat of his brains, and then throwing it out of the window. 

The Roman History was published in the middle of May, in 

two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought out 

without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the use 

of schools and colleges ; but, though a work written for bread, 

20 not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and the delight- 
ful simplicity of its style, that it was well received by the critics, 
commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and has ever since 
remained in the hands of young and old. 

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or 

25 dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of 
the author and the work in a conversation with Boswell, to the 
great astonishment of the latter. " Whether we take Gold- 
smith," said he, " as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian, 
he stands in the first class." Boswell. — " An historian ! My 

30 dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman 
History with the works of other historians of this age." John- 
son. — "Why, who are before him?" Boswell. — "Hume — 
Robertson — Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his antipathy against 
the Scotch beginning to rise). — " I have not read Hume ; but 

35 doubtless Goldsmith's History is better than the verbiage of 
Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." Boswell. — " Will 
you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose history 
we find such penetration, such painting?" Johnson. — "Sir, 
you must consider how that penetration and that painting are 



CHAPTER XXVI 163 

employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who de- 
scribes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints 
minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history -piece ; he im- 
agines an heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson's 
work as romance, and try it by that standard. History it is 5 
not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put 
into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has 
done this in his History. Now Robertson might have put 
twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man who has 
packed gold in wool ; the wool takes up more room than the 10 
gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be crushed 
w^ith his own weight — would be buried under his own orna- 
ments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; 
Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read 
Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time ; but Goldsmith's 15 
plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to 
Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his 
pupils, ' Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet 
with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it 
out ! ' Goldsmith's abridgment is better than that of Lucius 20 
Florus° or Eutropius° ; and I will venture to say, that, if you 
compare him with Vertot° in the same places of the Roman 
History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the 
art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a 
pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and 25 
will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." 

The Natural History to which Johnson alluded was the 
History of Animated Nature, which Goldsmith commenced in 
1769, under an engagement with Griffin, the bookseller, to com- 
plete it as soon as possible in eight volumes, each containing 30 
upwards of four hundred pages, in pica ; a hundred guineas to be 
paid to the author on the delivery of each volume in manuscript. 

He was induced to engage in this work by the urgent solici- 
tations of the booksellers, who had been struck by the sterling 
merits and captivating style of an introduction which he wrote to 35 
Brookes's Natural History. It was Goldsmith's intention origi- 
nally to make a translation of Pliny,° with a popular commentary ; 
but the appearance of Buffon's° work induced him to change 
his plan, and make use of that author for a guide and model. 



164 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Cumberland, speaking of this work, observes : " Distress 
drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his 
studies nor worthy of his talents. I remember him when, in 
his chambers in the Temple, he show^ed me the beginning of 
5 his Animated Nature ; it was with a sigh, such as genius draws 
when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for 
bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, which 
Pidock's showman would have done as well. Poor fellow, he 
hardly knows an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, 

10 but when he sees it on the table." 

Others of Goldsmith's friends entertained similar ideas witli 
respect to his fitness for the task, and they were apt now and 
then to banter him on the subject, and to amuse themselves 
with his easy credulity. The custom among the natives of 

15 Ofcaheite of eating dogs being once mentioned in company. 
Goldsmith observed that a similar custom prevailed in China ; 
that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher ; 
and that, when he walks abroad, all the dogs fall on him. 
Johnson. — " That is not owing to his killing dogs ; sir, I re- 

20 member a butcher at Litchfield, whom a dog that was in the 
house where I lived always attacked. It is the smell of carnage 
which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they 
may." Goldsmith. — "Yes, there is a general abhorrence in 
animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood 

25 into a stable, the horses are likely to go mad." Johnson. — " I 
doubt that." Goldsmith. — "Nay, sir, it is a fact well authen- 
ticated." Thrale. — " You had better prove it before you put 
it into your book on Natural History. You may do it in my 
stable if you will." Johnson. — "Nay, sir, I would not have 

30 him prove it. If he is content to take his information from 
others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and 
without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes 
experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be 
no end to them ; his erroneous assertions would fall then upon 

35 himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experi- 
ments as to every particular." 

Johnson's original prediction, however, with respect to this 
work, that Goldsmith would make it as entertaining as a Per- 
sian tale, was verified; and though much of it was borrowed 



CHAPTER XXVI 165 

from Buffon, and but little of it written from his own observa- 
tion, — though it was by no means profomid, and was charge- 
able with many errors, yet the charms of his style and the play 
of his happy disposition throughout have continued to render 
it far more popular and readable than many w^orks on the sub- 5 
ject of much greater scope and science. Cumberland was mis- 
taken, however, in his notion of Goldsmitii's ignorance and 
lack of observation as to the characteristics of animals. On 
the contrary, he was a minute and shrewd observer of them ; 
but he observed them wath the eye of a poet and moralist as 10 
well as a naturalist. We quote two passages from his 
works illustrative of this fact, and we do so the more readily 
because they are in a manner a part of his History, and give us 
another j^eep into his private life in the Temple, — of his mode 
of occupying himself in his lonely and apparently idle moments, 15 
and of another class of acquaintances which he made there. 

Speaking in his Animated Nature of the habitudes of Rooks, 
"I have often amused myself," says he, "with observing their 
plans of policy from my wdndow in the Temple, that looks upon 
a grove, where they have made a colony in the midst of a city. 20 
At the commencement of spring the rookery, which during the 
continuance of winter seemed to have been deserted, or only 
guarded by about five or six, like old soldiers in a garrison, 
now begins to be once more frequented, and in a short time all 
the bustle and hurry of business will be fairly commenced." 25 

The other passage, which we take the liberty to quote at 
some length, is from an admirable paper in the Bee, and 
relates to the House-Spider. 

" Of all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider 
is the most sagacious, and its motions to me, who have atten- 30 
tively considered th^m, seem almost to exceed belief. ... I 
perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one corner of 
my room making its w^eb ; and, though the maid frequently 
levelled her broom against the labors of the little animal, I had 
the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and I may say 35 
it more than paid me by the entertainment it afforded. 

" In three days the web was, with incredible diligence, com- 
pleted; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to 
exult in its new abode. It frequently trayerged it round, ex- 



166 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

amined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, 
and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it 
had to encounter was another and a much larger spider, which, 
having no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all 
5 its stock in former labors of this kind, came to invade the prop- 
erty of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible encounter ensued, 
in which the invader seemed to have the victory, and the labori- 
ous spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole. Upon this I 
perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy from its 

10 stronghold. He seemed to go off, but quickly returned ; and 
when he found, all arts in vain, began to demolish the new web 
without mercy. This brought on another battle, and, contrary 
to my expectations, the laborious spider became conqueror, and 
fairly killed his antagonist. 

15 " Now, then, in peaceable possession of what was justly its 
own, it waited three days with the utmost impatience, repairing 
the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could 
perceive. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, 
and struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to 

20 entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too 
strong for the cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised 
when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than a 
minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the motion 
of its wings was stopped ; and, when it was fairly hampered in 

25 this manner, it w^as seized and dragged into the hole. 

" In this manner it lived, in a precarious state ; and ISJ^ature 
seemed to have fitted it for such a life, for upon a single fly it 
subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the net ; 
but when the spider came out in order to seize it as usual, upon 

30 perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly 
broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay 
in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. When 
the wasp was set at liberty, I expected the spider w^ould have 
set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net ; 

35 but those, it seems, were irreparable ; wherefore the cobweb was 
now entirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was com- 
pleted in the usual time. 

" I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider 
could furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set 



CHAPTER XXVI . 167 

about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole 
stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. 
The arts it made use of to support itself, now deprived of its 
great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising, i have seen 
it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours to- 5 
gether, but cautiously watching all the time ; when a fly hap- 
pened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at 
once, and often seize its prey. 

" Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and 
resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it lo 
could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a 
neighboring fortification with great vigor, and at first was as 
vigorously repulsed. ISTot daunted, however, with one defeat, 
in thj^ manner it continued to lay siege to another's web for 
three days, and at length, having killed the defendant, actually 15 
took possession. When smaller flies happen to fall into the 
snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently 
waits till it is sure of them ; for, upon his immediately approach- 
ing, the terror of his appearance might give the captive strength 
sufficient to get loose ; the manner, then, is to wait patiently, 20 
till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted 
all its strength, and then he becomes a certain and easy conquest. 

" The insect I am now describing lived three years ; every 
year it changed its skin and got a new set of legs. I have 
sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three 25 
days. At first it dreaded my approach to its web, but at last it 
became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand; and, upon 
my touching any part of the web, would immediately leave its 
hole, prepared either for a defence or an attack." 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to his Brother Maurice. — 
Family Fortunes. — Jane Contarine and the Miniature. — Portraits 
and Enoravings. — School Associations. — Johnson and Goldsmith in 
Westminster Abbey. 

The latter part of the year 1768 had been made memorable 30 
in the world of taste by the institution of the Royal Academy 



168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

of Arts, under the patronage of the King, and the direction of 
forty of the most distinguished artists. Reynolds, who had 
been mainly instrumental in founding it, had been unani- 
mously elected president, and had thereupon received the honor 

5 of knighthood.i Johnson was so delighted with his friend's 
elevation, that he broke through a rule of total abstinence with 
respect to wine, which he had maintained for several years, and 
drank bumpers on the occasion. Sir Joshua eagerly sought to 
associate his old and valued friends with him in his new honors, 

10 and it is supposed to be through his suggestions that, on the 
first establishment of professorships, which took place in Decem- 
ber, 1769, Johnson was nominated to that of Ancient Literature, 
and Goldsmith to that of History. They were mere honorary 
titles, without emolument, but gave distinction, from the noble 

15 institution to which they appertained. They also gave the pos- 
sessors honorable places at the annual banquet, at which were 
assembled many of the most distinguished persons of rank and 
talent, all proud to be classed among the patrons of the arts. 
The following letter of Goldsmith to his brother alludes to 

20 the foregoing appointment, and to a small legacy bequeathed to 
him by his uncle Contarine. 

" To Mr. Maurice Goldsmith, at James Lawder's, 
Esq., at Kilmore, near Carrick-on- Shannon. 

"January, 1770. 
25 " Dear Brother, — T should have answered your letter sooner, 
but, in truth, I am not fond of thinking of the necessities of 
those I love, when it is so very little in my power to help 
them. I am sorry to find you are every way unprovided for; 
and what adds to my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter 
30 from my sister Johnson, by which I learn that she is pretty 
much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I believe 
I could get both you and my poor brother-in-law something 
like that which you desire, but I am determined never to 

1 We must apologize for the anachronism we have permitted our- 
selves in the course of this memoir, in speaking of Reynolds as Sir 
Joshua, when treating of circumstances which occurred prior to his 
heing dubbed ; but it is so customary to speak of him by that title, that 
we found it difficult to dispense witli it. 



CHAPTER XXVII 169 

ask for little things, nor exhaust any little interest I may have, 
until I can serve yoii, him, and myself more effectually. As yet, 
no opportunity has offered ; but I believe you are pretty well 
convinced that I will not be remiss when it arrives. 

" The King has lately been pleased to make me professor of 5 
Ancient History in the royal academy of painting which hehas 
just established, but there is no salary annexed ; and I took it 
rather as a compliment to the Institution than any benefit to 
myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like 
ruffles to one that wants a shirt. 10 

"You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left 
me in the hands of my cousin Lawder, and you ask me what I 
would have done with them. My dear brother, I would by no 
means give any directions to my dear worthy relations at Kil- 
more kow to dispose of money which is, properly speaking, inore 15 
theirs than mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, and this 
letter will serve to witness, give up any right and title to it ; and 
I am sure they will dispose of it to the best advantage. To 
them I entirely leave it ; whether they or you may think the 
whole necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor sister John- 20 
son may not want the half, I leave entirely to their and your 
discretion. The kindness of that good couple to our shattered 
family demands our sincerest gratitude; and, though they have 
almost forgotten me, yet, if good things at last arrive, I hope one 
day to return and increase their good-humor by adding to my 25 
own. 

" I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, 
as I believe it is the most acceptable present lean offer. I have 
ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkner's, folded in a 
letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, but it is finely 30 
painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon 
some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends 
here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe 
I have written a hundred letters to different friends in your 
country, and never received an answer to any of them. I do 35 
not know how to account for this, or why they are unwilling to 
keep up for me those regards which I must ever retain for them. 

" If, then, you have a mind to oblige me, you will write often, 
whether I answer you or not. Let me particularly have the 



170 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

news of our family and old acquaintances. For instance, you 
may begin by telling me about the family where you reside, how 
they spend their time, and whether they ever make mention of 
me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson and his son, 
5 my brother Harry's son and daughter, my sister Johnson, the 
family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they 
live, and how they do. You talked of being my only brother : 
I don't understand you. Where is Charles? A sheet of paper 
occasionally filled with the news of this kind would make me 
10 very happy, and would keep you nearer my mind. As it is, my 
dear brother, believe me to be 

" Yours, most affectionately, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

By this letter we find the Goldsmiths the same shifting, shift- 

15 less race as formerly ; a '' shattered family," scrambling on each 
other's back as soon as any rise above the surface. Maurice is 
" every way unprovided for " ; living upon cousin Jane and her 
husband ; and, perhaps, amusing himself by hunting otter in the 
river Inny. Sister Johnson and her husband are as poorly oft" as 

20 Maurice, with, perhaps, no one at hand to quarter themselves 
upon; as to the rest, " what is become of them? where do they 
live? and how do they do? what has become of Charles?" 
What forlorn, haphazard life is implied by these questions ! 
Can we wonder that, with all the love for his native place, which 

25 is shown throughout Goldsmith's writings, he had not the heart 
to return there ? Yet his affections are still there. He wishes to 
know whether the Lawders (which means his cousin Jane, his 
early Valentine) ever made mention of him ; he sends Jane his 
miniature ; he believes "it is the most acceptable present he can 

30 offer " ; he evidently, therefore, does not believe she has almost 
forgotten him, although he intimates that he does : in his memory 
she is still Jane Contarine, as he last saw her, when he accom- 
panied her harpsichord with his flute. Absence, like death, sets 
a seal on the image of those we have loved; we cannot realize 

35 the intervening changes which time may have effected. 

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he abandons his legacy 
of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. It is all he has to 
give. His heedless improvidence is eating up the pay of the 



CHAPTER XXVII 111 

booksellers in advance. With all his literary success, he has 
neither money nor influence ; but he has empty fame and he is 
ready to participate with them ; he is honorary professor, without 
pay ; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzotint, in company with 
those of his friends, Burke, Reynolds, Johnson, Colman, and 5 
others, and he will send prints of them to his friends over the 
Channel, though they may not have a house to hang them up 
in. What a motley letter ! How indicative of the motley 
character of the writer! By the bye, the publication of a 
splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness by Reynolds^ was 10 
a great matter of glorification to Goldsmith, es]3ecially as it 
appeared in such illustrious company. As he was one day 
walking the streets in a state of high elation, from having just 
seen it figuring in the print-shop windows, he met a young 
gentleman with a newly married wife hanging on his arm, 15 
whom he immediately recognized for Master Bishop, one of the 
boys he had petted and treated with sweetmeats when a humble 
usher at Milner's school. The kindly feelings of old times 
revived, and he accosted him with cordial familiarity, though 
the youth may have found some difficulty in recognizing in the 20 
personage, arrayed, perhaps, in garments of Tyrian dye, 
the dingy pedagogue of the Milners. "Come, my boy," cried 
Goldsmith, as if still speaking to a school-boy, — "come, Sam, 
I am delighted to see you. I must treat you to something — 
what shall it be ? Will you have some apples ? " glancing at an 25 
old woman's stall ; then, recollecting the print-shop window : 
" Sam," said he, " have you seen my picture by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds? Have you seen it, Sam? Have you got an engrav- 
ing ? " Bishoj) was caught ; he equivocated ; he had not yet 
bought it ; but he was f urnishing\ his house, and had fixed 30 
upon the place where it was to be hung. " Ah, Sam ! " 
rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, " if your picture had been 
published, I should not have waited an hour without having 
it." 

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Goldsmith, that 35 
was gratified at seeing his portrait deemed worthy of being 
perpetuated by the classic pencil of Reynolds, and "hung up in 
history " beside that of his revered friend Johnson. Even the 
great moralist himself was not insensible to a feeling of this 



172 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

kind. Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster 
Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and states- 
men, they came to the sculptured mementos of literary worthies 
in poets' corner. Casting his eye round upon these memorials 
5 of genius, Johnson muttered in a low tone to his companion, — 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." ° 

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly after- 
wards, as they were passing by Temple Bar, where the heads of 
Jacobite rebel s,° executed for treason, were mouldering aloft on 
10 spikes, pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed the 
intimation, — 

*' Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



Publication of The Deserted Village ; Notices and Illustrations 

of it. 

Several years had now elapsed since the publication of 
The Traveller, and much wonder was expressed that the great 

15 success of that poem had not excited the author to further 
poetic attempts. On being questioned at the annual dinner of 
the Royal Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he neglected 
the Muses to compile histories and write novels, " My Lord," 
replied he, " by courting the Muses I shall starve, but by my 

20 other labors I eat, drink, have good clothes, and can enjoy the 
luxuries of life." So, also, on being asked by a poor writer 
what was the most profitable mode of exercising the pen, — 
" My dear fellow," replied he, good-humoredly, " pay no 
regard to the draggle-tailed Muses ; for my part I have found 

25 productions in prose much more sought after and better paid 
for." 

Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he found sweet 
moments of dalliance to steal away from his prosaic toils, and 



CHAPTER XXVIII 173 

court the Muse among the green lanes and hedge-rows in the 
rural environs of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, he was 
enabled to bring his Demrted Village before the public. 

The popularity of The Traveller had prepared the way for 
this poem, and its sale was instantaneous and immense. The 5 
first edition was immediately exhausted ; in a few days a 
second was issued ; in a few days more a third, and by the 16th 
of August the fifth edition was hurried through the press. As 
is the case with popular writers, he had become his own rival, 
and critics were inclined to give the preference to his first 10 
poem ; but with the public at large we believe Tlie Deserted 
Village has ever been the greatest favorite. Previous to its 
publication the bookseller gave him in advance a note for the 
price agreed upon, one hundred guineas. As the latter was 
returnmg home he met a friend to whom he mentioned the 15 
circumstance, and who, apparently judging of poetry by quantity 
rather than quality, observed that it was a great sum for so 
small a poem. "In truth," said Goldsmith, "I think so too; 
it is much more than the honest man can afford or the piece is 
worth. I have not been easy since I received it." In fact, he 20 
actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left it to him 
to graduate the payment according to the success of the work. 
The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon repaid him in 
full with many acknowledgments of his disinterestedness. This 
anecdote has been called in question, we know not on what 25 
grounds; we see nothing in it incompatible with the character 
of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive and prone to acts of 
inconsiderate generosity. 

As we do not pretend in this summary memoir to go into a 
criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's writings, we shall 30 
not dwell upon the peculiar merits of this poem; we cannot 
help noticing, however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's 
heart, and of all the fond jDictures of early friends and early life 
forever present there. It seems to us as if the very last accounts 
received from home, of his "shattered family," and the desoIa-35 
tion that seemed to have settled upon the haunts of his child- 
hood had cut to the roots one feebly cherished hope, and 
produced the following exquisitely tender and mournful 
lines : — 



174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" In all my wand' rings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has giv'n my share — 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
5 To husband out life's taper at the close, 

And keep the flame from wasting by repose. 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still. 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, 
Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw, 
10 And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 

And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
I still had hopes, my long vexatious past. 
Here to return — and die at home at last." 

15 How touchingly expressive are the succeeding lines, wrung 
from a heart which all the trials and temptations and buffet- 
ings of the world could not render worldly; which, amid a 
thousand follies and errors of the^ head, still retained its child- 
like innocence ; and which, doomed to struggle on to the last 

20 amidst the din and turmoil of the metropolis, had ever been 
cheating itself with a dream of rural quiet and seclusion: — 

" Oh bless'd retirement, friend to life's decline. 
Retreats from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 

25 A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 

Who quits a world where strong temptations try 
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep. 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 

30 No surly porter stands, in guilty state, 

To spurn imploring famine from the gate ; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 

35 While resignation gently slopes the way ; 

And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 



l^OTE 

The following article, which appeared in a London periodical, 
shows the effect of Goldsmith's poem in renovating the fortunes 
40 of Lissoy. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 175 

" About three miles from Ballymahon, a very central town in 
the sister-kingdom, is the mansion and village of Auburn, so 
called by their present possessor, Captain Hogan. Through 
the taste and improvement of this gentleman, it is now a beau- 
tiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented a very bare 5 
and unpoetical aspect- This, however, was owing to a cause 
which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion, that Gold- 
smith had this scene in view when he wrote his poem of the 
Deserted Village. The then possessor. General Napier, turned 
all his tenants out of their farms that he might enclose them in 10 
his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the General, 
stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating spirit 
lamented by the poet, dilapidated and converted into a barrack. 

" The chief object of attraction is Lissoy, once the parsonage- 
house of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to whom the poet 15 
dedicated his Traveller, and who is represented as a village 
pastor, — 

" ' Passing rich with forty pounds a year.' 

" When I was in the country, the lower chambers were in- 
habited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing-rooms by oats. 20 
Captain Hogan, however, has, I believe, got it since into his 
possession, and has, of course, improved its condition. 

" Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the identity of 
Auburn, Lissoy House overcame my scruples. As I clambered 
over the rotten gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn or court, 25 
the tide of association became too strong for casuistry : here 
the poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly re- 
curred when composing his Traveller in a foreign land. 
Yonder was the decent church, that literally ' topped the neigh- 
boring hill.' Before me lay the little hill of Knockrue, on 30 
which he declares, in one of his letters, he had rather sit with a 
book in hand than mingle in the proudest assemblies. And, 
above all, startlingly true, beneath my feet was 

" * Yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 

And still where many a garden-flower grows wild.' 35 

" A painting from the life could not be more exact. * The 
stubborn currant-bush ' lifts its head above the rank grass, and 



176 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

the proud hollyhock flaunts where its sisters of the flower-knot 
are no more. 

" In the middle of the village stands the old ' hawthorn-tree,' 
built up with masonry to distinguish and preserve it ; it is old 
5 and stunted, and suffers much from the depredations of post- 
chaise travellers, who generally stop to procure a twig. Oppo- 
site to it the village alehouse, over the door of which swings 
' The Three Jolly Pigeons.' Within, everything is arranged 
according to the letter : — 

10 " * The wliitewash'd wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 

The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door: 
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 

15 The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.' 

" Captain Hogan, I have heard, found great difficulty in 
obtaining ' the twelve good rules,' but at length purchased them 
at some London bookstall to adorn the whitewashed parlor of 
' The Three Jolly Pigeons.' However laudable this may be, 
20 nothing shook my faith in the reality of Auburn so much as 
this exactness, which had the disagreeable air of being got up 
for the occasion. The last object of pilgrimage is the quondam 
habitation of the schoolmaster, — 

" * There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule.' 

25 It is surrounded with fragrant proofs of identity in 

" 'The blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay.' 

There is to be seen the chair of the poet, which fell into the 
hands of its present possessors at the wreck of the parsonage- 
house ; they have frequently refused large offers of purchase ; 

30 but more, I dare say, for the sake of drawing contributions 
from the curious than from any reverence for the bard. The 
chair is of oak, with back and seat of cane, which precluded all 
hopes of a secret drawer, like that lately discovered in Gay's.° 
There is no fear of its being worn out by the devout earnest- 

35 nessof sitters — as the cocks and hens have usurped undisputed 



CHAPTER XX nil 177 

possession of it, and protest most clamorously against all 
attempts to get it cleansed or to seat one's self. 

" The controversy concerning the identity of this Anbnrn 
was formerly a standing theme of discussion among the learned 
of the neighborhood ; but, since the ^jros and cons have been 5 
all ascertained, the argument has died away. Its abettors 
plead the singular agreement between the local history of the 
place and the Auburn of the poem, and the exactness with 
which the scenery of the one answers to the description of the 
other. To this is opposed the mention of the nightingale, — 10 

" ' And fill'd each pause the nightmgale had made ; ' 

there being no such bird in the island. The objection is 
slighted, on the other hand, by considering the passage as a 
mere poetical license. ' Besides,' say they, ' the robin is the 
Irish nightingale.' And if it be hinted how unlikely it was 15 
that Goldsmith should have laid the scene in a place from 
which he was and had been so long absent, the rejoinder is 
always, ' Pray, sir, was Milton in hell when he built Pande- 
monium? ' 

" The line is naturally drawn between; there can be no doubt 20 
that the poet intended England by 

" ' The land to hast'ning ills a prey, 

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' 

But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same time, his 
imagination had in view the scenes of his youth, which give 25 
such strong features of resemblance to the picture." 



Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveller in Amer- 
ica, that the hawthorn-bush mentioned in the poem was still 
remarkably large. " I was riding once," said he, " with Brady, 
titular Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, ' Ma foy, 30 
Best, this huge overgrow^n bush is mightily in the way. I 
will order it to be cut down.' — ' What, sir ! ' replied I, ' cut 

N 



178 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

down the bush that supplies so beautiful an image in the 
Deserted Village V — ' Ma foy ! ' exclaimed the bishop, ' is that 
the hawthorn-bush? Then let it be sacred from the edge 
of the axe, and evil be to him that should cut off a branch.' " 
5 — The hawthorn-bush, however, has long since been cut up, 
root and branch, in furnishing relics to literary pilgrims. 



CHAPTER XXIX 



The Poet among the Ladies ; Description of his Person and Manners. 

— Expedition to Paris with the Horneck Family. — The Traveller of 
Twenty and the Traveller of Forty. — Hickey, the Special Attorney. 

— An unlucky Exploit. 

The Deserted Village had shed an additional poetic grace 
round the homely person of the author ; he was becoming 
more and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and finding himself 

10 more and more at ease in their society ; at least in the society 
of those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom 
he particularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks. 

But let us see what were really the looks and manners of 
Goldsmith about this time, and what right he had to aspire 

15 to ladies' smiles ; and in so doing let us not take the sketches 
of Boswell and his compeers, who had a propensity to repre- 
sent him in caricature ; but let us take the apparently truthful 
and discriminating picture of him as he appeared to Judge 
Day, when the latter was a student in the Temple. 

20 " In person," says the Judge, " he was short ; about five feet 
five or six inches ; strong, but not heavy in make ; rather fair 
in complexion, with brown hair ; such, at least, as could be dis- 
tinguished from his wig. His features were plain, but not 
repulsive, — certainly not so when lighted up by conversation. 

25 His manners were simple, natural, and perhaps on the whole, 
we may say, not polished ; at least without the refinement and 
good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions 
would lead us to expect. He was always cheerful and ani- 
mated, often, indeed, boisterous in his mirth ; entered with 



CHAPTER XXIX 179 

spirit into convivial society; contributed largely to its enjoy- 
ments by solidity of information, and the naivete and originality 
of his character ; talked often without premeditation, and 
laughed loudly without restraint." 

This, it will be recollected, represents him as he appeared to 5 
a young Templar, who probably saw him only in Temple 
coffee-houses, at students' quarters, or at the jovial supper- 
parties given at the poet's own chambers. Here, of course, his 
mind was in its rough dress ; his laugh may have been loud 
and his mirth boisterous ; but we trust all these matters be- 10 
came softened and modified when he found himself in polite 
drawing-rooms and in female society. 

But what say the ladies themselves of him ; and here, fortu- 
nately, we have another sketch of him, as he appeared at the 
time to one of the Horneck circle ; in fact, we believe, to the 15 
Jessamy Bride herself. After admitting, apparently, with some 
reluctance, that " he was a very plain man," she goes on to say, 
" but had he been much more so, it was impossible not to love 
and respect his goodness of heart, which broke out on every 
occasion. His benevolence was unquestionable, and his counte- 20 
nance hore every trace of it: no one that knew him intimately 
could avoid admiring and loving his good qualities." When 
to all this we add the idea of intellectual delicacy and refine- 
ment associated with him by his poetry and the newly-plucked 
bays that were flourishing round his brow, we cannot be sur- 25 
prised that fine and fashionable ladies should be proud of his 
attentions, and that even a young beauty should not be altogether 
displeased with the thoughts of having a man of his genius in 
her chains. 

We are led to indulge some notions of the kind from finding 30 
him in the month of July, but a few weeks after the publica- 
tion of the Deserted Village, setting off on a six weeks' excur- 
sion to Paris, in company with Mrs. Horneck and her two 
beautiful daughters. A day or two before his departure, we 
find another new gala suit charged to him on the books of Mr. 35 
William Filby. Were the bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride 
responsible for this additional extravagance of wardrobe ? Gold- 
smith had recently been editing the works of Parnell; had he 
taken courage from the example of Edwin in the Fairytale ? — 



180 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

" Yet spite of all that nature did 
To make his uncouth form forbid, 

This creature dared to love- 
He felt the force of Edith's eyes, 
5 Nor wanted hope to gain the prize 
Could ladies look within" 

All this we throw out as mere hints and surmises, leaving it 

to our readers to draw their own conclusions. It will be found, 

however, that the poet was subjected to shrewd bantering 

10 among his contemporaries about the beautiful Mary Horneck, 

and that he was extremely sensitive on the subject. 

It was in the month of June that he set out for Paris with his 
fair companions, and the following letter was written by him 
to Sir Joshua Reynolds, soon after the party landed at Calais. 

15 " My dear Friend, — 

" We had a very quick passage from Dover to Calais, which 
we performed in three hours and twenty minutes, all of us 
extremely sea-sick, which must necessarily have happened, as 
my machine to prevent sea-sickness was not completed. We 

20 were glad to leave Dover, because we hated to be imposed 
upon ; so were in high spirits at coming to Calais, where we were 
told that a little money would go a great way. 

" Upon landing, with two little trunks, which was all we 
carried with us, we were surprised to see fourteen or fifteen 

25 fellows all running down to the ship to lay their hands upon 
them ; four got under each trunk, the rest surrounded and 
held the hasps ; and in this manner our little baggage was 
conducted, with a kind of funeral solemnity, till it was safely 
lodged at the custom-house. We were well enough pleased 

30 with the people's civility till they came to be paid; every 
creature that had the happiness of but touching our trunks 
with their finger expected sixpence ; and they had so pretty and 
civil a manner of demanding it, that there was no refusing 
them. 

35 "When w^e had done with the porters, we had next to speak 
with the custom-house officers, who had their pretty civil way 
too. We were directed to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where a 
valet-de-place came to offer his service, and spoke to me ten 



CHAPTER XXIX 181 

minutes before I once found out that he was speakmg English. 
We had no occasion for his services, so we gave him a little 
money because he spoke English, and because he wanted it. I 
cannot help mentioning another circumstance : I bought a new 
riband for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais 5 
broke it in order to gain sixpence by buying me a new one." 

An incident which occurred in the course of this tour has been 
tortured by that literary magpie, Boswell, into a proof of Gold- 
smith's absurd jealousy of any admiration shown to others in 
his presence. While stopping at a hotel in Lisle, they were 10 
drawn to the windows by a military parade in front. The ex- 
treme beauty of the Miss Hornecks immediately attracted the 
attention of the officers, who broke forth with enthusiastic 
speeches and compliments intended for their ears. Goldsmith 
was amused for a while, but at length affected impatience at 15 
this exclusive admiration of his beautiful companions, and ex- 
claimed, with mock severity of aspect, " Elsewhere I also would 
have my admirers." 

It is difficult to conceive the obtuseness of intellect necessary 
to misconstrue so obvious a piece of mock petulance and dry 20 
humor into an instance of mortified vanity and jealous self- 
conceit. 

Goldsmith jealous of the. admiration of a group of gay offi- 
cers for the charms of two beautiful young women ! This even 
out-Boswells Boswell; yet this is but one of several similar 25 
absurdities, evidently misconceptions of Goldsmith's peculiar 
vein of humor, by which the charge of envious jealousy has 
been attempted to be fixed upon him. In the present instance 
it was contradicted by one of the ladies herself, who was an- 
noyed that it had been advanced against him. "I am sure," 30 
said she, " from the peculiar manner of his humor, and assumed 
frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was mis- 
taken, by those who did not know him, for earnest." No one 
was more prone to err on this point than Boswell. He had a 
tolerable perception of wit, but none of humor. 35 

The following letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds was subsequently 
written. 



182 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



" To Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

"Paris, July 29 [1770]. 
" My dear Friend, — I began a long letter to you from 
Lisle, giving a description of all that we had. done and seen, 
5 but, finding it very dull, and knowing that you would show it 
again, I threw it aside and it was lost. You see by the top of 
this letter that we are at Paris, and (as I have often heard you 
say) we have brought our own amusement with us, for the ladies 
do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. 

10 " With regard to myself, I find that travelling at twenty and 
forty are very different things. I set out with all my confirmed 
habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good 
as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here 
is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising everything 

15 and every person we left at home. You may judge, therefore, 
whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among 
us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I could regret your 
absence so much as our various mortifications on the road have 
often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adven- 

20 tures without number ; of our lying in barns, and of my being 
half poisoned with a dish of green peas ; of our quarrelling with 
postilions, and being cheated by our landladies ; but I reserve 
all this for a happy hour which I expect to share with you upon 
my return. 

25 " I have little to tell you more, but that we are at present all 
well, and expect returning when we have stayed out one month, 
which I did not care if it were over this very day. I long to 
hear from you all, how you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, 
Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish 

30 I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I protest I 
am so stupefied by the air of this country (for I am sure it can- 
not be natural) that I have not a word to say. I have been 
thinking of the plot of a comedy, which shall be entitled A 
Journey to Paris, in which a family shall be introduced with a 

35 full intention of going to France to save money. You know 
there i.s not a place in the world more promising for that pur- 
pose. As for the meat of this country, I can scarce eat it ; and 
though we pay two good shillings a head for our dinner, I find 



CHAPTER XXIX 183 

it all so tough that I have spent less time with my knife than 
my picktooth. I said this as a good thing at the table, but it 
was not understood. I believe it to be a good thing. 

" As for our intended journey to Devonshire, I find it out of my 
power to perform it ; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend 5 
to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country-lodging some- 
where near that place in order to do some business. I have so 
outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it up 
again. For God's sake, the night you receive this, take your 
pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself and 10 
myself, if you know anything that has happened. About Miss 
Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my nephew, or anj^body that 
you regard. I beg you will send to Griffin the bookseller to 
know if there be any letters left for me, and be so good as to 
send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be left for me 15 
at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the pump in Temple Lane. The 
same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord Clare, from 
Ireland. As for the others, I am not much uneasy about. 

" Is there anything I can do for you at Paris ? I wish you 
would tell me. The whole of my own purcliases here is one 20 
silk coat, which I have put on, and which makes me look like a 
fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained his 
lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I will 
soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home 
than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that, if anything 25 
could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom 
I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about 
that, but I intend showing them the letter before I send it 
away. What signifies teasing you longer with moral observa- 
tions, when the business of my writing is over ? I have one thing 30 
only moi<e to say, and of that I think every hour in the day, 
namely, that I am your most sincere and most affectionate friend, 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

"Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, | 
Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Gerinains." j 05 

A word of comment on this letter : — ♦ 

Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with Goldsmith 
the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith the poet and Pro- 



184 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

fessor at forty. At twenty, though obliged to trudge on foot 
from town to town, and country to country, paying for a sup- 
per and a bed by a tune on the flute, everything pleased, every- 
thing was good ; a truckle-bed in a garret was a couch of down, 
5 and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure. 
Now, at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage, 
with fair ladies by his side, everything goes wrong : he has to 
quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels 
are barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half 

10 poisoned by green peas! A line in his letter explains the 
secret : " the ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we 
have seen." " One of our chief amusements is scolding at 
everything we meet with, and praising everything and every 
person we have left at home ! " — the true English travelling 

15 amusement. Poor Goldsmith ! he has " all his confirmed hahils 
about him " ; that is to say, he has recently risen into high life, 
and acquired high-bred notions; he must be fastidious like his 
fellow-travellers ; he dare not be pleased with what pleased the 
vulgar tastes of his youth. He is unconsciously illustrating 

20 the trait so humorously satirized by him in ISTed Tibbs, the 
shabby beau, who can find " no such dressing as he had at Lord 
Crump's or Lady Crimp's " ; whose very senses have grown 
genteel, and who no longer " smacks at wretched wine or 
praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, is worrying 

25 him throughout this tour ; he has " outrun the constable " ; 
that is to say, his expenses have outrun his means, and he will 
have to make up for this butterfly flight by toiling like a grub 
on his return. 

Another circumstance contributes to mar the pleasure he had 

30 promised himself in this excursion. At Paris the party is un- 
expectedly joined by a Mr. Hickey, a bustling attorney, who is 
well acquainted with that metropolis and its environs, and 
insists on playing the cicerone on all occasions. He and Gold- 
smith do not relish each other, and they have several petty 

35 altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of business and 
method for the careless poet, and is disposed to manage every- 
thing. He has perceived Goldsndth's whimsical peculiarities 
witjiout properly appreciating his merits, and is prone to in- 
dulge in broad bantering and raillery at his expense, particu- 



CHAPTER XXIX 185 

larly irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He makes 
himself merry on his return to England, by giving the follow- 
ing anecdote as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity : — 

" Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the water-works, 
a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the dis- 5 
tance from whence they stood to one of the little islands was 
within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained the 
affirmative; but, being bantered on the subject, and remember- 
ing his former ]3rowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, fall- 
ing short, descended into the water, to the great anmsement of 10 
the company." 

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit ? 

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, some time 
subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, in his poem of The 
Retaliation. 15 

" Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature, 
And slander itself must allow him good-nature ; 
He clierish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, 
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser ; 20 

I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser ; 
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat? 
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that; 
Perhaps he confided in men as they go, 

And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, no! 25 

Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye — 
He was, could he help it? a special attorney." 

One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith during 
his tour is the following, of whimsical import, in his Animated 
Nature. 30 

<' In going through the towns of France, some time since, I 
could not help observing how much plainer their parrots spoke 
than ours, and how very distinctly I understood their parrots 
speak French, when I could not understand our own, though 
they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed it to the 35 
different qualities of the two languages, and was for entering 
into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants ; but 
a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by as- 
suring me that the French women scarce did anything else the 



186 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils; and 
that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in consequence 
of continual schooling." 

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the most 
5 fragrant recollections; for, being asked, after his return, 
whether travelling on the Continent repaid " an Englishman 
for the privations and annoyances attendant on it," he replied, 
"I recommend it by all means to the sick, if they are without 
the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the 

10 sense of feeling, and to both if they can discharge from their 
minds all idea of what in England we term comfort." 

It is needless to say that the universal improvement in the 
art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken 
away the force of Goldsmith's reply, though even at the time it 

15 was more humorous than correct. 



CHAPTER XXX . 

Death of Goldsmith's Mother. — Biography of Parnell. — Agreement 
with Davies for the History of Rome. — Life of Bolingbroke, — The 
Haunch of Venison. 

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the melancholy 
tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding the fame 
as an author to which he had attained, she seems to have been 
disappointed in her early expectations from him. Like others 

20 of his family, she had been more vexed by his early follies than 
pleased by his proofs of genius ; and in subsequent years, when 
he had risen to fame and to intercourse with the great, had 
been annoyed at the ignorance of the world and want of man- 
agement, which prevented him from pushing his fortune. He 

25 had always, however, been an affectionate son, and in the latter 
years of her life, when she had become blind, contributed from 
his precarious resources to prevent her from feeling want. 

He now resumed the labors of his pen, which his recent excur- 
sion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have 

30 mentioned a Life of Parnell, published by him shortly after the 



CHAPTER XXX 187 

Deserted Village. It was, as usual, a piece of job-work, hastily 
got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly of it, and 
the author himself thought proper to apologize for its meagre- 
ness, — yet, in so doing, used a simile, which for beauty of 
imagery and felicity of language is enough of itself to stamp a 5 
value upon the essay. 

" Such," says he, " is the very unpoetical detail of the life of 
a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more interest- 
ing than those that make the ornaments of a country tomb- 
stone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin to 10 
excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom an 
object sufficiently great to attract much attention ; his real 
merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing 
in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is then 
too lat^ to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; thelh 
dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase hy 
the meridian splendor." 

He now entered into an agreement with Davies to prepare an 
abridgment, in one volume duodecimo, of his History of Borne ; 
but first to write a work for which there was a more immediate 20 
demand. Davies was about, to republish Lord Bolingbroke's° 
Dissertation on Parties, which he conceived would be exceedingly 
applicable to the affairs of the day, and make a probable hit dur- 
ing the existing state of violent political excitement ; to give it 
still greater effect and currency, he engaged Goldsmith to intro-25 
duce it with a prefatory life of Lord Bolingbroke. 

About this time Goldsmith's friend and countryman. Lord 
Clare, was in great affliction, caused by the death of his only 
son. Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a 
kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore. Goldsmith paid 30 
him a visit at his seat of Gosfield, taking his tasks with him. 
Davies was in a worry lest Gosfield Park should prove a Capua° 
to the poet, and the time be lost. " Dr. Goldsmith " writes he 
to a friend, "has gone with Lord Clare into the country, and I 
am plagued to get the proofs from him of the Life of LordS5 
Bolingbroke." The proofs, however, were furnished in time for 
the publication of the work in December. The Biography, 
though written during a time of political turmoil, and intro- 
ducing a work intended to be thrown into the arena of politics, 



188 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

maintained that freedom from party prejudice observable in all 
the writings of Goldsmith. It was a selection of facts, drawn 
from many unreadable sources, and arranged into a clear, flow- 
ing narrative, illustrative of the career and character of one 
5 who, as he intimates, " seemed formed by Nature to take delight 
in struggling with op]30sition ; whose most agreeable hours were 
passed in storms of his own creating; whose life was spent in 
a continual conflict of politics, and as if that was too short for 
the combat, has left his memory as a subject of lasting couten- 

10 tion." The sum received by the author for this memoir is sup- 
posed, from circumstances, to have been forty pounds. 

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great unat- 
tended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed 
to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed, 

15 at what he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Camden. 
He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his 
friends. " I met him," said he, " at Lord Clare's house in the 
country; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been 
an ordinary man." "The company," says Boswell, "laughed 

20 heartily at this piece of ' diverting simplicity.' " And foremost 
among the laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. 
Johnson, how^ever, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the poet, 
whom he would allow no one to assail but himself ; perhaps in 
the present instance he thought the dignity of literature itself 

25 involved in the question. "Nay, gentlemen," roared he, " Dr. 
Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up 
to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is much against 
Lord Camden that he neglected him." 

After Goldsmith's return to town he received from Lord 

30 Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetu- 
ated in his amusing verses entitled the Haunch of Venison. 
Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment 
caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in 
the humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton 

35 as a treat : — 

" Thanks, my lord, for your venison ; for finer or fatter 
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter: 
The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy ; 



CHAPTER XXX 189 

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 

To spoil such a delicate picture by eatiug • 

I had thought in my chambers to place it in view, 

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu ; 

As in some Irish houses where things are so-so, 5 

One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show ; 

But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in, 

They'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in 

Tf: 7^ yfi yp T^ Ti^ T^ Tft 

But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat, 

Your very good mutton's a very good treat, 10 

Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt ; 

It's like sending them ruffles, when ivanting a shirt." 

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's blunders 
which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare's, when 
that nobleman was residing in Bath. 15 

Lord*Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses 
next to each other, of similar architecture. Returning home 
one morning from an early walk. Goldsmith, in one of his fre- 
quent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into 
the Duke's dining-room, where he and the Duchess were about 20 
to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself in 
the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made them 
an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and threw 
himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man perfectly 
at home. The Duke and Duchess soon perceived his mistake, 25 
and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with the con- 
siderateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward 
embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with him 
about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they 
invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor 30 
heedless Goldsmith ; he started up from his free-and-easy posi- 
tion, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have 
retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the Duke and Duchess 
treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their 
way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them. 35 

Tliis may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on 
his first visit to Northumberland House. 



190 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Dinner at the Royal Academy. — The Rowley Controversy. — Horace 
Walpole's Conduct to Chatterton. — Johnson at Redcliffe Church. — 
Goldsmith's History of England. — Davies's Criticism. — Letter to 
Bennet Langton. 

On St. George's day of this year (1771), the first annual ban- 
quet of the Koyal Academy was held in the exhibition-room; 
the walls of which were covered with works of art, about to be 
submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 
5 first suggested this elegant festival, presided in his ofiicial 
character ; Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, 
as Professors of the academy; and, beside the academicians, 
there was a large number of the most distinguished men of the 
day as guests. Goldsmith on this occasion drew on himself the 

10 attention of the company by launching out with enthusiasm on 
the poems recently given to the world by Chatterton," as the 
works of an ancient author by the name of Rowley, discovered 
in the tower of Redclitfe Church, at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke 
of them with rapture, as a treasure of old English poetry. 

15 This immediately raised the question of their authenticity ; they 
having been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton's. Goldsmith 
was warm for their being genuine. When he considered, he 
said, the merit of the poetry, the acquaintance with life and the 
human heart displayed in them, the antique quaintness of the 

20 language and the familiar knowledge of historical events of 
their supposed day, he could not believe it possible they could 
be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and con- 
fined to the duties of an attorney's office. They must be the 
productions of Rowley. 

25 Johnson who was a stout unbeliever in Rowley, as he had 
been in Ossian,° rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusi- 
asm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined 
in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the " trouvaille,''^ 
as he called it, " of Ms friend Chatterton " was in question. 

30 This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Gold- 
smith, was no novelty to him, he said. " He might, had he 



CHAPTER XXXI 191 

pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great discovery to 
the learned world." And so he might, had he followed his 
first impulse in the matter, for he himself had been an original 
believer ; had pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by 
Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit; and had 5 
been ready to print them and publish them to the world with 
his sanction. When he found, however, that his unknown 
correspondent was a mere boy, humble in sphere and indigent 
in circumstances, and when Gray and Mason° pronounced the 
poems forgeries, he had changed his whole conduct towards the 10 
unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness had 
dashed all his sanguine hopes to the ground. 

Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man 
of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the 
credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce 15 
'•an inspired idiot"; but his mirth was soon dashed, for on 
asking the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was 
answered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experi- 
enced the pangs of despondent genius, that "he had been to 
London, and had destroyed himself." 20 

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to the cold 
heart of Walpole ; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at 
his recent levity. " The persons of honor and veracity who 
were present," said he in after-years, when he found it necessary 
to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neglect of 25 
genius, "will attest with what surprise and concern I thus first 
heard of his death." Well might he feel concern. His cold 
neglect had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit of that 
youthful genius, and hurry him towards his untimely end ; nor 
have all the excuses and palliations of Walpole's friends and 30 
admirers been ever able entirely to clear this stigma from his 
fame. 

But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of honest 
Goldsmith in this matter, to subject him to the laugh of John- 
son or the raillery of Walpole? Granting the poems were not 35 
ancient, were they not good? Granting they were not the pro- 
ductions of Rowley, were they the less admirable for being the 
productions of Chatterton ? Johnson himself testified to their 
merits and the genius of their composer, when, some years 



192 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

afterwards, he visited the tower of Redcliffe Church, and was 
shown the coffer in which poor Chatterton had pretended to 
find them. " This," said he, " is the most extraordinary young 
man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful liow 
5 the wlielp lias written such things." 

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and had sub- 
sequently a dispute with Dr. Percy on the subject, which inter- 
rupted and almost destroyed their friendship. After all, his 
enthusiasm was of a generous, poetic kind; the poems remain 

10 beautiful monuments of genius, and it is even now difficult to 
persuade one's self that they could be entirely the productions 
of a youth of sixteen. 

In the month of August was published anonymously the 
History of England, on which . Goldsmith had been for some 

15 time employed. It was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he 
acknowledged in the preface, from Rapin, Carte, Smollett, and 
Hume, " each of whom," says he, " have their admirers, in pro- 
portion as the reader is studious of political antiquities, fond of 
minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate reasoner." 

20 It possessed the same kind of merit as his other historical com- 
pilations ; a clear, succinct narrative, a simple, easy, and grace- 
ful style, and an agreeable arrangement of facts ; but was not 
remarkable for either depth of observation or minute accuracy 
of research. Many passages were transferred, with little if any 

25 alteration, from his Letters from a Nobleman to his Son on 
the same subject. The work, though written without party 
feeling, met with sharp animadversions from political scribblers. 
The writer was charged with being unfriendly to liberty, dis- 
posed to elevate monarchy above its proper sphere : a tool of 

30 ministers ; oue who would betray his country for a pension. 
Tom Davies, the publisher, the pompous little bibliopole of 
Russell Street, alarmed lest the book should prove unsalable, 
undertook to protect it by his pen, and wrote a long article in 
its defence in The Public Advertiser. He was vain of his criti- 

35 cal effusion, and sought by nods and winks and innuendoes to 
intimate his authorship. " Have you seen," said he, in a letter 
to a friend, '" An Impartial Account of Goldsanith^s History of 
England ' ? If you want to know who was the writer of it, 
you will find him in Russell Street ; — but mum ! " 



CHAPTER XXXI 193 

The History, on the whole, however, was well received ; some 
of the critics declared that English history had never before 
been so usefully, so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, " and, 
like his other historical writings, it has kept its ground " in 
English literature. 5 

Goldsmith had intended this summer, in company with Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet Langton, at his seat 
in Lincolnshire, where he was settled in domestic life, having 
the year previously married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. 
The following letter, however, dated from his chambers in the 10 
Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for putting off the 
visit, while it gives an amusing account of his summer occupa- 
tions and of the attacks of the critics on his History of 
England : — 

" My DEAR Sir, — 15 

" Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, 1 have been al- 
most wholly in the country, at a farmer's house, quite alone, 
trying to write a comedy. It is now finished ; but when or how 
it wdll be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are questions 
I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much employed upon that, 20 
that I am under the necessity of putting off my intended visit 
to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is just returned from 
Paris, and finds himself now in the case of a truant that must 
make up for his idle time by diligence. We have therefore 
agreed to postpone our journey till next summer, when we hope 25 
to have the honor of waiting upon Lady Rothes and you, and 
staying double the time of our late intended visit. We often 
meet, and never without remembering you. I see Mr. Beauclerc 
very often both in town and country. He is now going directly 
forward to become a second Boyle : deep in chemistry and 30 
physics. Johnson has been down on a visit to a country par- 
son, Doctor Taylor, and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. 
Thrale's. Burke is a farmer, en attendant a better place ; but 
visiting about too. Every soul is visiting about and merry but 
myself. And that is hard too, as I have been trying these three 35 
months to do something to make people laugh. There have I 
been strolling about the hedges, studying jests with a most 
tragical countenance. The Natural Hisiory is about half fin- 
o 



194 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ished, and I will shortly finish the rest. God knows I am tired 
of this kind of finishing, which is but bungling work; arid that 
not so much my fault as the fault of my scurvy circumstances. 
They begin to talk in town of the Opposition's gaining ground ; 
5 the cry of liberty is still as loud as ever. I have published, or 
Davies has published for irie, Sbn Abr id grnent of the History of 
England, for which I have been a good deal abused in the news- 
papers, for betraying the liberties of the people. God knows I 
had no thought for or against liberty in my head; my whole 

10 aim being to make up a book of a decent size, that, as 'Squire 
Richard says, would do no harm to nobody. However, they set 
me down as an arrant Tory, and consequently an honest man. 
When you come to look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a 
sore Whig. God bless you, and with my most respectful com- 

15 pliments to her Ladyship, I remain, dear Sir, your most affec- 
tionate humble servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 



CHAPTER XXXII 



Marriage of Little Comedy. — Goldsmith at Barton. — Practical Jokes 
at the Expense of his Toilet. — Amusements at Barton. — Aquatic 
Misadventure. 

Though Goldsmith found it impossible to break from his 
literary occupations to visit Bennet Langton, in Lincolnshire, 

20 he soon yielded to attractions from another quarter, in which 
somewhat of sentiment may have mingled. Miss Catherine 
Horneck, one of his beautiful fellow-travellers, otherwise called 
Little Comedy, had been married in August to Henry William 
Bunbury, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, who has become cele- 

25 brated for the humorous productions of his pencil. Goldsmith 
was shortly afterwards invited to pay the newly married couple 
a visit at their seat, at Barton, in Suffolk. How could he resist 
such an invitation — especially as the Jessamy Bride would, of 
course, be among the guests? It is true, he was hampered 

30 with work ; he was still more hampered with debt ; his accounts 



CHAPTER XXXII 195 

with Newbery were perplexed ; but all must give way. New 
advances are procured from Newbery, on the promise of a new 
tale in the style of the Vicar of Wakefield, of which he showed 
him a few roughly sketched chapters ; so, his purse replenished 
in the old way, "by hook or by crook," he posted off to visits 
the bride at Barton. He found there a joyous household, and 
one where he was welcomed with affection. Garrick was there, 
and played the part of master of the revels, for he was an 
intimate friend of the master of the house. Notwithstanding 
early misunderstandings, a social intercourse between the actor 10 
and the poet had grown \rg of late, from meeting together con- 
tinually in the same circle. A few particulars have reached us 
concerning Goldsmith while on this happy visit. We believe 
the legend has come down from Miss Mary Horneck herself. 
" While at Barton," she says, " his manners were always play- 15 
ftd and amusing, taking the lead in promoting any scheme of 
innocent mirth, and usually prefacing the invitation with 
' Come, now, let us play the fool a little.' At cards, which 
was commonly a round game, and the stake small, he was 
always the most noisy, affected great eagerness to win, and 20 
teased his opponents of the gentler sex with continual jest and 
banter on their want of spirit in not risking the hazards of the 
game. But one of his most favorite enjoyments was to romp 
with the children, when he threw off all reserve, and seemed 
one of the most joyous of the group. 25 

" One of the means by which he amused us was his songs, 
chiefly of the comic kind, which were sung with some taste 
and humor ; several, I believe, were of his own composition, 
and I regret that I neither have copies, which might have been 
readily procured from him at the time, nor do I remember 30 
their names." 

, His perfect good-humor made him the object of tricks of all 
kinds ; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself 
had played off. Unluckily, these tricks were sometimes made 
at the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to 35 
please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched to 
the impoverishment of his purse. " Being at all times gay in 
his dress," says this ladylike legend, "he made his appearance 
at the breakfast-table in a smart black silk coat with an expen- 



196 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

sive pair of ruffles ; the coat some one contrived to soil, and it 
was sent to be cleansed ; but, either by accident, or probably 
by design, the day after it came home, the sleeves became 
daubed with paint, which was not discovered until the ruffles 
5 also, to his great mortification, were irretrievably disfigured. 
" He always wore a wig, a peculiarity which those who judge ' 
of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds 
would not suspect; and on one occasion some person contrived 
seriously to injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the 

10 only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed 

irreparable until the services of Mr. Bunbury's valet were called in, 

who, however, performed his functions so indifferently, that j^oor 

Goldsmith's appearance became the signal for a general smile." 

This was wicked waggery, esi^ecially when it was directed to 

15 mar all the attempts of the unfortunate poet to improve his 
personal appearance, about which he was at all times dubiously 
sensitive, and particularly when among the ladies. 

We have in a former chapter recorded his unlucky tumble 
into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility 

20 in the presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to 
be equally baneful to him on the present occasion. " Some 
difference of opinion," says the fair narrator, " having arisen 
with Lord Harrington respecting the depth of a pond, the 
poet remarked that it was not so deep but that, if anything 

25 valuable was to be found at the bottom, he would not hesitate 
to pick it up. His lordship, after some banter, threw in a 
guinea ; Goldsmith, not to be outdone in this kind of bravado, 
in attempting to fulfil his promise without getting wet, acci- 
dentally fell in, to the amusement of all present, but persevered, 

30 brought out the money, and kept it, remarking that he had 
abundant objects on whom to bestow any farther proofs of 
his lordship's whim or bounty." 

All this is recorded by the beautiful Mary Horneck, the 
Jessamy Bride herself ; but while she gives these amusing 

35 pictures of poor Goldsmith's eccentricities, and of the mis- 
chievous pranks played off upon him, she bears unqualified 
testimony, which we have quoted elsewhere, to the qualities of 
his head and heart, which shone forth in his countenance, and 
gained him the love of all who knew him. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 197 

Among the circumstances, of this visit vaguely called to mind 
by this fair lady in after years, was that Goldsmith read to her 
and her sister the first part of a novel which he had in hand. 
It was doubtless the manuscript mentioned at the beginning of 
this chapter, on which he' had obtained an advance of money 5 
from Newbery to stave off some pressing debts, and to provide 
funds for this very visit. It never was finished. The book- 
seller, when he came afterwards to examine the manuscript, 
objected to it as a mere narrative version of the Good-natured 
Man. Goldsmith, too easily put out of conceit of his w^ritings, 10 
threw it aside, forgetting that this was the very Xewbery who 
kept his Vicar of Wakefield by him nearly two years, through 
doubts of its success. The loss of the manuscript is deeply to 
be regr^ted ; it doubtless would have been properly wrought up 
before given to the press, and might have given us new scenes 15 
of life and traits of character, while it could not fail to bear 
traces of his dfelightful style. What a pity he had not been 
guided by the opinions of his fair listeners at Barton^ instead of 
that of the astute Mr. Newbery ! 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



Dinner at General Oglethorpe's. — Anecdotes of the General. — Dispute 
about Duelling. — Ghost Stories. 

We have mentioned old General Oglethorpe as one of Gold- 20 
smith's aristocratical acquaintances. This veteran, born in 
1698, had commenced life early, by serving, when a mere 
stripling, under Prince Eugene, against the Turks. He had 
continued in military life, and been promoted to the rank 
of major-general in 1745, and received a command during the 25 
Scottish rebellion. Being of strong Jacobite tendencies, he was 
suspected and accused of favoring the rebels; and though 
aquitted by a court of inquiry, was never afterwards employed ; 
or, in technical language, was shelved. He had since been re- 
peatedly a member of Parliament, and had always distinguished 30 



198 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

himself by learning, taste, active benevolence, and high Tory- 
principles. His name, however, has become historical, chiefly 
from his transactions in America, and the share he took in the 
settlement of the colony of Georgia. It lies embalmed in 
5 honorable immortality in a single line of Pope's : — 

" One, driven by strong benevolence of soul, 
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." 

The veteran was now seventy-fonr years of age, but healthy 
and vigorous, and as much the preux chevalier as in his younger 

10 days, when he served with Prince Eugene. His table was often 
the gathering-place of men of talent. Johnson was frequently 
there, and delighted in drawing from the General details 
of his various " experiences." He w^as anxious that he 
should give the world his life. " I know no man," said he, 

15 " whose life would be more interesting." Still the vivacity of 
the General's mind and the variety of his knowledge made him 
skip from subject to subject too fast for the Lexicographer. 
" Oglethorpe," growled he, " never completes what he has to 
say." 

20 Boswell gives us an interesting and characteristic account of a 
dinner-party at the General's (April 10th, 1772), at which Gold- 
smith and Johnson were present. After dinner, when the cloth 
was removed, Oglethorpe, at Johnson's request, gave an account 
of the siege of Belgrade, in the true veteran style. Pouring a 

25 little wine upon the table, he drew his lines and parallels with 
a wet finger, describing the positions of the opposing forces. 
" Here were we — here were the Turks," to all which Johnson 
listened with the most earnest attention, pouring over the plans 
and diagrams with his usual purblind closeness. 

30 In the course of conversation the General gave an an- 
ecdote of himself in early life, when serving under Prince 
Eugene. Sitting at table once in company with a prince of 
Wurtemberg, the latter gave a fillip to a glass of wine, so as to 
make some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which 

35 it was done w^as somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken 
by the stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge the 
Prince ; but in so doing he might fix on himself the character 
of a drawcansir.° If passed over without notice, he might be 



CHAPTER XXXIIl 199 

charged with cowardice. His mind was made up in an instant. 
" Prince," said he, smiling, " that is an excellent joke ; but we 
do it much better in England." So saying he threw a whole 
glass of wine in the Prince's face. " II a bien fait, mon Prince," 
cried an old General present, " vous I'avez commence." (He 5 
has done right, my Prince ; you commenced it.) The Prince 
had the good sense to acquiesce in the decision of the veteran, 
and Oglethorpe's retort in kind was taken in good part. 

It was probably at the close of this story that the officious 
Boswell, ever anxious to promote conversation for the benefit 10 
of his note-book, started the question whether duelling were 
consistent with moral duty. The old General fired up in an 
instant. " Undoubtedly," said he, with a lofty air ; " imdoubt- 
edly a man has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith im- 
mediateiy carried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and 15 
pinned him with the question, " what he would do if affronted ? " 
The pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the 
General rather than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, " he 
should think it necessary to fight." " Why, then, that solves 
the question," replied Goldsmith. " No, sir ! " thundered out 20 
Johnson; "it does not follow that what a man would do, is 
therefore right." He, however, subsequently went into a dis- 
cussion to show that there were necessities in the case arising 
out of the artificial refinement of society, and its proscription 
of any one who should put up with an affront without fighting 25 
a duel. ' " He then," concluded he, " who fights a duel does not 
fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence, 
to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from 
being driven out of society. I could wish there were not that 
superfluity of refinement ; but while such notions prevail, no 30 
doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel." 

Another question started was, whether people who disagreed 
on a capital point could live together in friendship. Johnson 
said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had 
not the idem velle atque idem nolle — the same likings and 35 
aversions. Johnson rejoined, that they must shun the subject 
on which they disagreed. " But, sir," said Goldsmith, " when 
people live together who have something as to which they dis- 
agree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation 



200 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

mentioned in the story of Blue Beard: 'you may look into all 
the chambers but one ; ' but we should have the greatest in- 
clination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." 
" Sir," thundered Johnson, in a loud voice, " I am not saying 
5 that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you 
differ as to some point; I am only saying that / could do it." 

Who will not say that Goldsmith had the best of this petty 
contest? How just was his remark! how felicitous the illus- 
tration of the blue chamber ! how rude and overbearing was the 

10 argumentum ad liominem of Johnson, when he felt that he had 
the worst of the argument ! 

The conversation turned upon ghosts. General Oglethorpe 
told the story of a Colonel Prendergast, an officer in the Duke 
of Marlborough's army, who predicted among his comrades that 

15 he should die on a certain day. The battle of Malplaquet took 
place on that day. The Colonel was in the midst of it, but came 
out unhurt. The firing had ceased, and his brother officers 
jested with him about the fallacy of his prediction. " The day 
is not over," replied he, gravely ; " I shall die notwithstanding 

20 what you see." His words proved true. The order for a cessa- 
tion of firing had not reached one of the French batteries, and 
a random shot from it killed the Colonel on the spot. Among 
his effects was found a pocket-book in which he had made a sol- 
emn entry, that Sir John Friend, who had been executed for 

25 high treason, had appeared to him, either in a dream or vision, 
and predicted that he would meet him on a certain day (the 
very day of the battle). Colonel Cecil, who took possession of 
the effects of Colonel Prendergast, and read the entry in the 
pocket-book, told this story to Pope, the poet, in the presence 

30 of General Oglethorpe. 

This story, as related by the General, appears to have been 
well received, if not credited, by both Johnson and Goldsmith, 
each of whom had something to relate in kind. Goldsmith's 
brother, the clergyman in whom he had such implicit confi- 

35 dence, had assured him of his having seen an apparition. John- 
son also had a friend, old Mr. Cave, the printer, at St. John's 
Gate, " an honest man, and a sensible man," who told him he 
had seen a ghost; he did not, however, like to talk of it, and 
seemed to be in great horror whenever it was mentioned. "And 



CHAPTER XXXIV 201 

pray, sir," asked Boswell, " what did he say was the appear- 
ance?" " Why, sir, something of a shadowy being." 

The reader will not be surprised at this superstitious turn in 
the conversation of such intelligent men, when he recollects 
that, but a few years before this time, all London had been agi- 5 
tated by the absurd story of the Cock-lane ghost ; a matter which 
Dr. Johnson had deemed worthy of his serious investigation, and 
about which Goldsmith had written a pamphlet. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 



Mr. Joseph Cradock. — An Author's Confidings. — An Amanuensis. — 
Life at Edgeware. — Goldsmith Conjuring. — George Colman. — The 
Fantoccini. 

Among the agreeable acquaintances made by Goldsmith 
about this time M'^as a Mr. Joseph. Cradock, a young gentleman lo 
of Leicestershire, living at his ease, but disposed to " make 
himself uneasy," by meddling with literature and the theatre ; 
in fact, he had a passion for plays and players, and had come 
up to town with a modified translation of Voltaire's tragedy of 
Zobeide, in a view to get it acted. There was no great diffi- 15 
culty in the case, as he was a man of fortune, had letters of 
introduction to persons of note, and was altogether in a differ- 
ent position from the indigent man of genius w^hom managers 
might harass with impunity. Goldsmith met him at the house 
of Yates, the actor, and finding that he was a friend of Lord 20 
Clare, soon became sociable with him. JNIutual tastes quick- 
ened the intimacy, especially as they found means of serving 
each other. Goldsmith wrote an epilogue for the tragedy of 
Zobeide ; and Cradock, who was an amateur musician, arranged 
the music for the Threnodia Augustalis, a Lament on the death 25 
of the Princess Dowager of Wales, the political mistress and 
patron of Lord Clare, which Goldsmith had thrown off hastily 
to please that nobleman. The tragedy was played with some 
success at Covent Garden ; the Lament was recited and sung 



202 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

at Mrs. Cornelys' rooms — a very fashionable resort in Soho 
Square, got up by a woman of enterprise of that name. It was 
in whimsical parody of those gay and somewhat promiscuous 
assemblages that Goldsmith used to call the motley evening 
5 parties at his lodgings " little Cornelys." 

The Threnodia Augustalis was not publicly known to be by 
Goldsmith until several years after his death. 

Cradock was one of the few polite intimates who felt more 
disposed to sympathize with the generous qualities of the poet 

10 than to sport with his eccentricities. He sought his society 
whenever he came to town, and occasionally had him to his 
seat in the country. Goldsmith appreciated his sympathy, and 
unburdened himself to him without reserve. Seeing the lettered 
ease in which this amateur author was enabled to live, and the 

15 time he could bestow on the elaboration of a manuscript, 
" Ah ! Mr. Cradock," cried he, " think of me, that must write a 
volume every month ! " He complained to him of the attempts 
made by inferior writers, and by others who could scarcely 
come under that denomination, not only to abuse and depre- 

20ciate his writings, but to render him ridiculous as a man; per- 
verting every harmless sentiment and action into charges of 
absurdity, malice, or folly. " Sir," said he, in the fulness of 
his heart, " I am as a lion baited by curs ! " 

Another acquaintance, which he made about this time, was a 

25 young countryman of the name of M'Donnell, whom he met in 
a state of destitution, and, of course, befriended. The follow- 
ing grateful recollections of his kindness and his merits were 
furnished by that person in after years : — 

" It was in the year 1772," writes he, '^ that the death of my 

30 elder brother — when in London, on my way to Ireland — left 
me in a most forlorn situation ; I was then about eighteen ; I 
possessed neither friends nor money, nor the means of getting 
to Ireland, of which or of England I knew scarcely anything, 
from having so long resided in France. In this situation I had 

35 strolled about for two or three days, considering what to do, but 
unable to come to any determination, when Providence directed 
me to the Temple Gardens. I threw myself on a seat, and, 
willing to forget my miseries for a moment, drew out a book ; 
that book was a volume of Boileau.° I had not been there long 



CHAPTER XXXIV 203 

when a gentleman, strolling about, passed near me, and observ- 
ing, perhaps, something Irish or foreign in my garb or counte- 
nance, addressed me : ' Sir, you seem studious; I hope you find 
this a favorable place to pursue it.' ' Not very studious, sir ; I 
fear it is the want of society that brings me hither ; I am soli- 5 
tary and unknown in this metropolis;' and a passage from 
Cicero — Or alio pro Archia — occurring to me, I quoted it: 
' Hsec studia° pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.' 
' You are a scholar, too, sir, I perceive.' ' A piece of one, sir ; 
but I ought still to have been in the college where 1 had the 10 
good fortune to pick up the little I know.' A good deal of con- 
versation ensued ; I told him part of my history, and he, in return, 
gave his address in the Temple, desiring me to call soon, from 
which, to my infinite surprise and gratification, I found that 
the person who thus seemed to take an interest in my fate was 15 
my countryman and a distinguished ornament of letters. 

" I did not fail to keep the appointment, and was received in 
the kindest manner. He told me, smilingly, that he was not 
rich ; that he could do little for me in direct pecuniary aid, but 
would endeavor to put me in the way of doing something for 20 
myself ; observing, that he could at least furnish me with 
advice not wholly useless to a young man placed in the heart of 
a great metropolis. ' In London,' he continued, ' nothing is to 
be got for nothing; you must work; and no man who chooses 
to be industrious need be under obligations to another, for here 25 
labor of every kind commands its reward. If you think proper 
to assist me occasionally as amanuensis, I shall be obliged, 
and you will be placed under no obligation, until something 
more permanent can be secured for you.' This employment, 
which I pursued for some time, was to translate passages from 30 
Buffon, which were abridged or altered, according to circum- 
stances, for his Natural History. ''"' 

Goldsmith's literary tasks were fast getting ahead of him, 
and he began now to "toil after them in vain." 

Five volumes of the Natural History here spoken of had long 35 
since been paid for by Mr. Griffin, yet most of them were still to 
be written. His young amanuensis bears testimony to his em- 
barrassments and perplexities, but to the degree of equanimity 
with which he bore them : — 



204 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

"It has been said," observes he, "that he was irritable. 
Such may have been the case at times : nay, I believe it was so ; 
for what with the continual, pursuit of authors, printers, and 
booksellers, and occasional pecuniary embarrassments, few could 
5 have avoided exhibiting similar marks of impatience. But it 
was never so towards me. I saw him only in his bland and 
kind moods vAth a flow, perhaps an overflow, of the milk of 
human kindness for all who were in any manner dependent 
upon him. Hooked upon him with awe and veneration, and he 

10 upon me as a kind parent upon a child. 

" His manner and address exhibited much frankness and 
cordiality, particularly to those with whom he possessed any 
degree of intimacy. His good-nature was equally apparent. 
You could not dislike the man, although several of his follies 

15 and foibles you might be tempted to condemn. He was gener- 
ous and inconsiderate ; money with him had little value." 

To escape from many of the tormentors just alluded to, and to 
devote himself without interruption to his task. Goldsmith 
took lodgings for the summer at a farm-house near the six-mile 

20 stone on the Edgeware road, and carried down his books in 
two return post-chaises. He used to say he believed the farm- 
er's family thought him an odd character, • similar to that in 
which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children; 
he was The Gentleman. Boswell tells us that he went to visit 

25 him at the place in company with Mickle, translator of the 
Lusiad° Goldsmith was not at home. Having a curiosity to 
see his apartment, however, they went in, and found curious 
scraps of descriptions of anhnals scrawled upon the wall with a 
black lead pencil. 

30 The farm-house in question is still in existence, though 
much altered. It stands upon a gentle eminence in Hyde Lane, 
commanding a pleasant prospect towards Hendon. The room is 
still pointed out in which She Stoops to Conquer was written ; a 
convenient and airy apartment, up one flight of stairs. 

35 Some matter-of-fact traditions concerning the author were 
furnished, a few years since, by a son of the farmer, who was 
sixteen years of age at the time Goldsmith resided with his 
father. Though he had engaged to board with the family, his 
meals were generally sent to him in his room, in which he 



CHAPTER XXXIV 205 

passed the most of his time, negligently dressed, with his shirt- 
collar open, busily engaged in writing. Sometimes, probably 
when in moods of composition, he would wander into the kitchen, 
without noticing any one, stand musing with his back to the 
fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to commits 
to paper some thought which had struck him. 

Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was to be seen 
loitering and reading and musing under the hedges. He was 
subject to fits of wakefulness, and read much in bed ; if not 
disposed to read, he still kept the candle burning ; if he wished 10 
to extinguish it, and it was out of his reach, he flung his slipper 
at it, which would be found in the morning near the overturned 
candlestick and daubed with grease. He was noted here, as 
everywhere else, for his charitable feelings. No beggar applied 
to him tn vain, and he evinced on all occasions great commis- 15 
eration for the poor. 

He had the use of the parlor to receive and entertain com- 
pany, and was visited by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hugh Boyd, the 
reputed author of Junius, Sir William Chambers, and other dis- 
tinguished characters. He gave occasionally, though rarely, a 20 
dinner-party; and on one occasion, when his guests were de- 
tained by a thunder-shower, he got up a dance, and carried the 
merriment late into the night. 

As usual, he was the promoter of hilarity among the young, 
and at one time took the children of the house to see a company 25 
of strolling players at Hendon. The greatest amusement to the 
party, however, was derived from his own jokes on the road 
and his comments on the performance, which produced infinite 
laughter among his youthful companions. 

Near to his rural retreat at Edge ware, a Mr. Seguin, an Irish 30 
merchant, of literary tastes, had country quarters for his family, 
where Goldsmith was always welcome. 

In this family he would indulge in playful and even grotesque 
humor, and was ready for anything — conversation, music, or a 
game of romps. He prided himself upon his dancing, and would 35 
walk a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, to the infinite amusement of 
herself and the children, whose shouts of laughter he bore with 
perfect good-humor. He would sing Irish songs, and the Scotch 
ballad of Johnny Armstrong. He took the lead in the children's 



206 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

sports of blind-man's-buff, hunt the slipper, &c., or in their 
games at cards, and was the most noisy of the party, affecting 
to cheat and to be excessively eager to win ; while with children 
of smaller size he would turn the hind part of his wig before, 
5 and play all kinds of tricks to amuse them. 

One word as to his musical skill and his performance on the 
flute, which comes up so invariably in all his fireside revels. 
He really knew nothing of music scientifically ; he had a good 
ear, and may have played sweetly; but we are told he could not 

10 read a note of music. Roubillac, the statuary, once played a 
trick upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down an 
air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semibreves 
at random. When he had finished. Goldsmith cast his eyes 
over it and pronounced it correct ! It is possible that his exe- 

15 cution in music was like his style in writing ; in sweetness and 

melody he may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of art ! 

He was at all times a capital companion for children, and 

knew how to fall in with their humors. " I little thought," 

said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, " what I should have to 

20 boast when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill by two 
bits of paper on his fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, we 
are told, with a whole budget of stories and songs ; delivered 
the Chimney Sweep with exquisite taste as a solo ; and per- 
formed a duet with Garrick of Old Rose and Burn the Bellows. 

25 "I was only five years old," says the late George Colman, 
" when Goldsmith one evening, when drinking coffee with my 
father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which 
amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face; it 
must have been a tingler, for I left the marks of my little spite- 

30 f ul paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed 
by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father in an 
adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. 
Here I began to howl and scream most abominably. At length 
a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy; it was the 

35 good-natured Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, 
and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red 
from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he 
fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the 
propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a 



CHAPTER XXXIV 207 

shilling under each ; the shillings, he told me, were England, 
France, and Spain. ' Hey, presto, cockolorum ! ' cried the Doc- 
tor, and, lo ! on uncovering the shillings, they were all found 
congregated under one. I was no politician at the time, and 
therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution 5 
which brought England, France, and Spain all under one 
crown; but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me beyond 
measure. From that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit 
my father, 

*' ' I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile ; ' ^^ 

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial 
friends and merry playfellows." 

Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farm-house his head- 
quarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at 
a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, 15 
at their country-seats. He would often visit town, also, to dine 
and partake of the public amusements. On one occasion he 
accompanied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of the 
Italian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton Street; an exhibition 
which had hit the caprice of the town, and was in a great vogue. 20 
The puppets were set in motion by wires, so well concealed as 
to be with difficulty detected. Boswell, with his usual obtuse- 
ness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of being jealous of 
the puppets ! " When Burke," said he, " praised the dexterity 
with which one of them tossed a pike, ' Pshaw,' said Goldsmith 25 
with some ivamith, ' I can do it better myself.' " " The same 
evening," adds Boswell, " when supping at Burke's lodgings, he 
broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how 
much better he could jump over a stick than the puppets." 

Goldsmith jealous of puppets ! This even passes in absurdity 30 
Boswell's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty of the 
two Miss Hornecks. 

The Panton-Street puppets were destined to be a source of 
further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little 
autocrat of the stage. Foote, the Aristophanes of the English 35 
drama, who was always on the alert to turn every subject of 
popular excitement to account, seeing the success of the 



208 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Fantoccini, gave out that lie should produce a Primitive 
Puppet-Show at the Haymarket, to be entitled The Handsome 
Chambermaid, or Piety in Pattens; intended to burlesque the 
sentimental comedy which Garrick still maintained at Urury 
5 Lane. The idea of a play to be performed in a regular theatre 
by puppets excited the curiosity and talk of the town. " Will 
your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Foote ? " demanded a lady 
of rank. " Oh, no, my lady," replied Foote, " not m,uch larger 
than Garrick" 



CHAPTER XXXV 



Broken Health. — Dissipation and Debts. — The Irish Widow. — Practi- 
cal Jokes. — Scrub. — A misquoted Pan. — Malagrida. — Goldsmith 
proved to be a Fool. — Distressed Ballad-Singers. — The Poet at 
Ranelagh. 

10 Goldsmith returned to town in the autumn (1772), with his 
health much disordered. His close fits of sedentary application, 
during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast, had laid 
the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and produced a 
severe illness in the course of the summer. Town-life was not 

15 favorable to the health either of body or mind. He could not 
resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that he had 
become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accordingly 
we find him launching away in a career of social dissipation ; 
dining and supping out ; at clubs, at routs, at theatres ; he is a 

20 guest with Johnson at the Thrales', and an object of Mrs. 
Thrale's° lively sallies; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's and Mrs. 
Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stockings pro- 
nounce him a " wild genius," and others, peradventure, a " wild 
Irishman." In the mean time his pecuniary difficulties are 

25 increasing upon him, conflicting with his proneness to pleasure 
and expense, and contributing by the harassment of his mind 
to the wear and tear of his constitution. His Animated Nature, 
though not finished, has been entirely paid for, and the money 
spent. The money advanced by Garrick on Newbery's note, 

30 still hangs over him as a debt. The tale on which Newbery 



CHAPTER XXXV 209 

had loaned from two to three hundred pounds previous to the 
.excursion to Barton, has proved a failure. The bookseller is 
urgent for the settlement of his complicated account ; the per- 
plexed author has nothing to offer him in liquidation but the 
copyright of the comedy which he has in his portfolio ; " Though, 5 
to tell you the truth, Frank," said he, " there are great doubts 
of its success." The offer was accepted, and, like bargains 
wrung from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned out a 
golden speculation to the bookseller. 

In this way Goldsmith went on " overrunning the constable," 10 
as he termed it ; spending everything in advance ; working 
with an overtasked head and weary heart to pay for past 
pleasures and past extravagance, and at the same time incur- 
ring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his 
future prospects. While the excitement of society and the 15 
excitement of composition conspire to keep up a feverishness 
of the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quack- 
ing himself with James's powders, a fashionable panacea of the 
day. 

A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The Irish 20 
Widoic, perpetuates the memory of practical jokes played off a 
year or two previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, simple- 
hearted Goldsmith. He was one evening at the house of his 
friend Burke, when he was beset by a tenth muse, an Irish 
widow and authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full of brogue 25 
and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole gentility. She was 
soliciting subscriptions for her poems, and assailed Goldsmith 
for his patronage ; the great Goldsmith — her countryman, and 
of course her friend. She overpowered him with eulogiums on 
his own poems, and then read some of her own, with vehemence 30 
of tone and gesture, appealing continually to the great Gold- 
smith to know how he relished them. 

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant 
gentleman could do in such a case ; he praised her poems as 
far as the stomach of his sense would permit — perhaps a little 35 
further ; he offered her his subscription ; and it was not until 
she had retired with many parting compliments to the great 
Goldsmith, that he pronounced the poetry which had been 
inflicted on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax 



210 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

got up by Burke for the amusement of his company; and the 
Irish widow, so admirably performed, had been personated by 
a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great sprightliness 
and talent. 
5 We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity of 
Goldsmith, biit we think it tells rather to the disadvantage of 
Burke, — being unwarrantable under their relations of friend- 
ship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his genius. 

Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of these practi- 

lOcal jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's 
credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel O' Moore, of 
Cloghan Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The 
Colonel and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square 
on their way to' Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with whom they were to 

15 dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest, stand- 
ing and regarding a crowd which was staring and shouting at 
some foreign ladies in the widow of a hotel. " Observe Gold- 
smith," said Burke to O'Moore, " and mark what passes between 
us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and reached there before 

20 him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected reserve and cold- 
ness; being pressed to explain the reason, "Really," said he, 
" I am ashamed to keep company with a person who could act 
as you have just done iu the Square." Goldsmith protested he 
was ignorant of what was meant. " Why," said Burke, " did 

25 you not exclaim, as you were looking up at those women, what 
stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admira- 
tion at those painted Jezebels, while a man of your talents 
passed by unnoticed?" "Surely, surely, my dear friend," 
cried Goldsmith, with alarm, " surely I did not say so ? " 

30 "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how should 1 
have known it ? " " That's true," answered Goldsmith, " I am 
very sorry — it was very foolish : / do recollect that something of 
the kind passed through my mind, but L did not think I had 
uttered it." 

35 It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off by 
Burke before he had attained the full eminence of his social 
position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties 
with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is 
evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his 



CHAPTER XXXV 211 

guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of 
some of his associates ; while others more polished though 
equally perfidious, were on the watch to give currency to his 
bulls and blunders. 

The Stratford jubilee,° in honor of Shakespeare, where Bos- 5 
well had made a fool of- himself, was still in every one's mind. 
It was sportively suggested that a fete should be held at Litch- 
field in honor of Johnson and Garrick, and that the Beaux 
Stratagem should be played by the members of the Literary 
Club. " Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, " I shall certainly play 10 
Scrub. ° I should like of all things to try my hand at that 
character." The unwary speech, which any one else might 
have made without comment, has been thought worthy of 
record as whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely 
apt to circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on 15 
some trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments 
of his sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, 
served up at Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, 
but were any other color. A wag suggested to Goldsmith, in a 
whisper, that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that was 20 
the way to turn-em-green (Turnham Green). Goldsmith, de- 
lighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's table, 
but missed the point. " That is the way to make 'em green," 
said he. N'obody laughed. He perceived he was at fault. " I 
mean that is the road to turn 'em green." A dead pause and 25 
a stare ; — " whereupon," adds Beauclerc, " he started up discon- 
certed and abruptly left the table." This is evidently one of 
Beauclerc's caricatures. 

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at 
the theatre next to Lord Shelburne, the minister, whom politi- 30 
cal writers thought proper to nickname Malagrida.° " Do you 
know," said Goldsmith to his lordship, in the course of conver- 
sation, "that I never could conceive why they call you Mala- 
grida, /or Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This was 
too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass : he 35 
serves it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a speci- 
men of a mode of turning a thought the wrong way, peculiar 
to the poet; he makes merry over it with his witty and sarcas- 
tic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it " a picture of 



212 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



1 



Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when he hears it 
bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls forth a 
friendly defence : " Sir," said he, " it was a mere blunder in 
emphasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should use Mala- 
5 grida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith ! On such 
points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, the 
poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor from 
those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was in conversa- 
tion. The old conventional character was too deeply stamped in 

10 the memory of the veteran to be effaced. " Sir," replied the old 
wiseacre, " he tvas a fool. The right word never came to him. 
If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say. Why, it's as good 
a shilling as ever was born. You know he ought to have said 
coined. Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was a fool, sir." 

15 We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity 
is played upon, that it is quite a treat to meet with one in 
which he is represented playing upon the simplicity of others, 
especially when the victim of his joke is the " Great Cham " 
himself, whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. 

20 Goldsmith and Johnson were supping cosily together at a tavern 
in Dean Street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at Drury 
Lane, and a protege of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in these 
gastronomical tele-a-tetes, and was expatiating in high good- 
humor on a dish of rumps and kidneys, the veins of his fore- 

25 head swelling with the ardor of mastication. " " These," said 
he, " are pretty little things ; but a man must eat a great many 
of them before he is filled." " Aye ; but how many of them," 
asked Goldsmith, with affected simplicity, "would reach to 
the moon ? " " To the moon ! Ah, sir, that, I fear, exceeds 

30 your calculation." "Not at all, sir; I think I could tell." 
" Pray, then, sir, let us hear." " Why, sir, one, if it were long 
enough ! " Johnson growled for a time at finding himself 
caught in such a trite schoolboy trap. " Well, sir," cried he at 
length, "I have deserved it. I should not have provoked so 

35 foolish an answer by so foolish a question." 

Among the many incidents related as illustrative of Gold- 
smith's vanity and envy is one which occurred one evening 

• when he was in a drawing-room with a party of ladies, 
and a ballad-singer under the window struck up his favorite 



CHAPTER XXXV 213 

song of Sally Salishury. " How miserably this woman sings ! " 
exclaimed he. " Pra}'-, Doctor," said the lady of the house, 
" could you do it better ? " " Yes, madam, and the company 
shall be judges." The company, of course, prepared to be en- 
tertained by an absurdity ; but their smiles were well-nigh turned 5 
to tears, for he acquitted himself with a skill and pathos that 
drew universal applause. He had, in fact, a delicate ear for 
nmsic, which had been jarred by the false notes of the ballad- 
singer ; and there were certain pathetic ballads, associated with 
recollections of his childhood, which were sure to touch the 10 
springs of his heart. We have another story of him, connected 
with ballad-singing, which is still more characteristic. He was 
one evening at the house of Sir William Chambers, in Berners 
Street, seated at a whist-table with Sir William, Lady Chambers, 
and Baretti, when all at once he threw down his cards, hurried 15 
out of tJie room and into the street. He returned in an instant, 
resumed his seat, and the game went on. Sir William, after a 
little hesitation, ventured to ask the cause of his retreat, fearing 
he had been overcome by the heat of the room. " Not at all," 
replied Goldsmith ; " but in truth I could not bear to hear that 20 
unfortunate woman in the street, half singing, half sobbing, for 
such tones could only arise from the extremity of distress ; her 
voice grated painfully on my ear and jarred my frame, so that 
I could not rest until I had sent her away." It was in fact a 
poor ballad-singer whose cracked voice had been heard by others 25 
of the party, but without having the same effect on their sensi- 
bilities. It was the reality of his fictitious scene in the story of 
the Man in Black ; wherein he describes a woman in rags, with 
one child in her arms and another on her back, attempting to 
sing ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it was difR- 30 
cult to determine whether she was singing or crying. "A 
wretch," he adds, " who, in the deepest distress, still aimed at 
good-humor, was an object my friend was by no means capable 
of withstanding." The Man in Black gave the poor woman all 
that he had — a bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is probable, 35 
sent his ballad-singer away rejoicing, with all the money in his 
pocket. 

Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a place of pub- 
lic entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea ; the principal 



214 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

room was a Rotunda of great dimensions, with an orchestra in 
the centre, and tiers of boxes all round. It was a place to which 
Johnson resorted occasionally. "I am a great friend to pub- 
lic amusements," said he, " for they keep people from vice." ^ 
5 Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, though perhaps not 
altogether on such moral grounds. He was particularly fond of 
masquerades, which were then exceedingly popular, and got up 
at Ranelagh with great expense and magnificence. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, who had likewise a taste for such amusements, was 

10 sometimes his companion ; at other times he went alone ; his 
peculiarities of person and manner would soon betray him, 
whatever might be his disguise, and he would be singled out by 
wags, acquainted with his foibles, and more successful than him- 
self in maintaining their incognito, as a capital subject to be 

15 played upon. Some, pretending not to know him, would decry 
his writings, and praise those of his contemporaries ; others 
would laud his verses to the skies, but purposely misquote 
and burlesque them ; others would annoy him with parodies ; 
while one young lady, whom he was teasing, as he supposed, 

20 with great success and infinite humor, silenced his rather 
boisterous laughter by quoting his own line about " the loud 
laugh that speaks the vacant mind." On one occasion 
he was absolutely driven out of the house by the persever- 
ing jokes of a wag, whose complete disguise gave him no 

25 means of retaliation. 

His name appearing in the newspapers among the distin- 
guished persons present at one of these amusements, his old 
enemy, Kenrick, immediately addressed to him a copy of anony- 
mous verses, to the following purport. 

1 " Alas, sir ! " said Johnson, speaking, when in anothermood, of grand 
houses, fine gardens, and splendid places of public amusement; " alas, 
sir ! these are only struggles for happiness. When I first entered Rane- 
lagh it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never 
experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his 
immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude 
would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to 
consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not 
afraid to go home and think." 



CHAPTER XXXV 215 



TO DR. GOLDSMITH; 

ON SEEING HIS NAME IN THE LIST OF MUMMERS AT THE LATE 

MASQUERADE. 

" How widely different, Goldsmitli, are the ways 
Of Doctors now, and those of ancient days ! 
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades. 
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades. 
So changed the times! say, philosophic sage, 5 

Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age, 
Is the Pantheon, ° late a sink obscene, 
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene°? 
Or do thy moral numbei'S quaintly flow, 

Inspired by th' Aganippe^ of Soho ? 10 

Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli, 
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly ? 
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause, 
^ Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause ? 

Is this the good that makes the humble vain, 15 

The good philosophy should not disdain? 

If so, let pride dissemble all it can, 

A modern sage is still much less than man." 

Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the kind, and 
meeting Kenrick at the Chapter Coffee-House, called him to 20 
sharp account for taking such liberty with his name, and calling 
his morals in question, merely on account of his being seen at a 
place of general resort and amusement. Kenrick shuffled and 
sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing derogatory to his 
private character. Goldsmith let him know, however, that he 25 
v^as aware of his having more than once indulged in attacks of 
this dastard kind, and intimated that another such outrage 
would be followed by personal chastisement. 

Kenrick, having played the craven in his presence, avenged 
himself as soon as he was gone by complaining of his having 30 
made a wanton attack upon him, and by making coarse com- 
ments upon his writings, conversation, and person. 

The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmerited, may 
have checked Goldsmith's taste for masquerades. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, calling on the poet one morning, found him walking 35 
about his room in somewhat of a reverie, kicking a bundle of 
clothes before him like a football. It proved to be an expensive 



216 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

masquerade dress, which he said he had been fool enough to 
purchase, and as there was no other way of getting the worth 
of his money, he was trying to take it out in exercise. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 



Invitation to Christmas. — The Spring- Velvet Coat. — The Haymaking 
Wig. — The Mischances of Loo. — The Fair Culprit. — A Dance with 
the Jessamy Bride. 

From the feverish dissipations of town. Goldsmith is sum- 
5 moned away to partake of the genial dissipations of the coun- 
try. In the month of December, a letter froiii Mrs. Bunbury 
invites him down to Barton, to pass the Christmas holidays. 
The letter is written in the usual playful vein which marks his 
intercourse with this charming family. He is to come in his 

10 " smart spring-velvet coat," to bring a new wig to dance with 
the haymakers in, and above all to follow the advice of herself 
and her sister, the Jessamy Bride, in playing loo. This letter 
whicli plays so archly, yet kindly, with some of poor Gold- 
smith's peculiarities, and bespeaks such real ladylike regard for 

15 him, requires a word or two of annotation. This spring-velvet 
suit alluded to appears to have been a gallant adornment 
(somewhat in the style of the famous blooniKsolored coat), in 
which Goldsmith had figured in the preceding month of May 
— the season of blossoms; for, on the 21st of that month, we 

20 find the f ollow'ing entry in the chronicle of Mr. William Filby, 
tailor : To your blue velvet suit, £21 10s. 9d. Also, about the 
same time, a suit of livery and a crimson collar for the serving- 
man. Again we hold the Jessamy Bride responsible for this 
gorgeous splendor of wardrobe. 

25 The new wig no doubt is a bag-wig and solitaire, still highly 
the mode, and in which Goldsmith is represented as figuring 
when in full dress equipped with his sword. 

As to the dancing with the haymakers, we presume it alludes 
to some gambol of the poet, in the course of his former visit 



CHAPTER XXXVI 217 

to Barton ; when he ranged the fields and lawns a chartered 
libertine, and tumbled into the fish-ponds. 

As to the suggestions about loo, they are in sportive allusion 
to the Doctor's mode of playing that game in their merry even- 
ing parties ; affecting the desperate gambler and easy dupe ; 5 
running counter to all rule; making extravagant ventures; re- 
proaching all others with cowardice; dashing at all hazards at 
the pool, and getting himself completely loo'd, to the great 
amusement of the company. The drift of the fair sisters' 
advice was most probably to tempt him on, and then leave him 10 
in the lurch. 

With these comments we subjoin Goldsmith's reply to Mrs. 
Bunbury, a fine piece of off-hand, humorous writing, which has 
but in late years been given to the public, and which throws a 
familiar light on the social circle at Barton. 15 

" Mai)Ame, — I read your letter with all that allowance 
which critical candor could require, but after all find so much 
to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I can- 
not help giving it a serious answer. — I am not so ignorant, 
madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, 20 
and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the 
town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, 
and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains 
from a town also of that name ; — but this is learning you have 
no taste for!) — I say, madam, that there are many sarcasms 25 
in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, 
I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my 
remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows : — 

" * I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 

And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, 30 

To open our ball the first day of the year.' 

" Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet ' good ' 
applied to the title of doctor? Had you called me 'learned 
doctor,' or 'grave doctor,' or 'noble doctor,' it might be allow- 
able, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil 35 
at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to 
wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle of 



218 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

winter ! — a spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter ! ! ! 
That would be a solecism indeed ! and yet to increase the 
inconsistency, in another part of your letter you call me a beau. 
Now, on one side or other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau, 
5 1 can never think of wearing a spring-velvet in winter ; and if 
I am not a beau, why then, that explains itself. But let me 
go on to your two next strange lines : — 

" ' And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, 
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.' 

10 " The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself 
seem sensible of : you say your sister will laugh ; and so indeed 
she well may ! , The Latins have an expression for a contemptu- 
ous kind of laughter, ' naso contemnere adunco ' ; that is, to 
laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the man- 

15 ner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the 
most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, — which 
is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing ab loo. The 
presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds 
of prose ; it inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I 

20 take advice ! and from whom ? You shall hear. 

" First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 
The company set, and the word to be Loo : 
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, 
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 

25 Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 
At never once finding a visit from Pam. 
I lay down my stake, apparently cool, 
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, 

30 I wish all my friends may be bolder than I : 

Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 
By losing their money to venture at fame. 
'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold : 

35 All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . 
' What does Mrs. Bunbury ?'...' I, sir ? I pass.' 
* Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, come do.' 
' Who, I ? — let me see, sir, why I must pass too.' 
Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil, 

40 To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 



CHAPTER XXXVl 219 

Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 

Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 

I venture at all, while my avarice regards 

The whole pool as my own. . . . ' Come, give me five cards.' 

' Well done ! ' cry the ladies ; ' ah, Doctor, that's good ! 5 

The pool's very rich, . . .ah! the Doctor is loo'd ! ' 

Thus loil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 

I ask for advice from the lady that's next : 

' Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice ; 

Don't you think the best way is to venture for't twice ? ' 10 

' I advise,' cries the lady, ' to try it, I own. . . . 

Ah! the Doctor is loo'd ! Come, Doctor, put down.' 

Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager, 

And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar. 

Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in, 15 

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding : 

For giving advice that is not worth a straw. 

May well be call'd picking of pockets in law ; 

And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye. 

Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. 20 

What justice, when both to the Old Baily brought! 

By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' 'tis but in thought! 

Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum, 

With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em; 

Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, 25 

But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 

When uncover 'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 

' Pray what are their crimes ? ' . . . 'They've been pilfering found.' 

' But, pray, who have they pilfer'd ?'...' A doctor, I hear.' 

* What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near? ' 30 

' The same.' . . . 'What a pity! how does it surprise one, 

Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on ! ' 

Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering. 

To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 

First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung, 35 

' Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.' 

' The younger the worse,' I return him again, 

' It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 

' But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.' 

' What signifies handsotne, when people are thieves ? ' ^" 

' But where is your justice ? their cases are hard.' 

' What signifies 7 i^siice f I want the reward.' 

" ' There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty ponnds ; 
there's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch offers forty pounds ; 
there's the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the-poand to St. 45 



220 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Giles's watch-house, offers forty pounds, — I shall have all that 
if I convict them ! ' — 



<( < 



But consider their case, ... it may yet be your own ! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone? ' 
o This moves : ... so at last I agree to relent, 

For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent. 

" I challenge you all to answer this : I tell you, you cannot. 
It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the letter : and next — 
but I want room — so I believe I shall battle the rest out at 
10 Barton some day next week. — I don't value you all ! 

" O. G. " 

We regret that we have no record of this Christmas visit to 
Barton ; that the poet had no Boswell to follow at his heels, 
and take 'note of all his sayings and doings. We can only 
15 picture him in our minds, casting off all care; enacting the 
lord of misrule; presiding at the Christmas revels ; providing 
all kinds of merriment ; keeping the card-table in an uproar, 
and finally opening the ball on the first day of the year in his 
spring-velvet suit, with the Jessamy Bride for a partner. 



CHAPTER XXXYII 

Theatrical Delays. — Negotiations with Colman. — Letter to Gar rick. 
— Croaking of the Manager. — Naming of the Play. — She Stoops to 
Conquer. — Foote's Primitive Puppet-Show, Piety in Pattens. — 
First Performance of the Comedy. — Agitation of the Author, — 
Success. — Colman Squibbed out of Town. 

20 The gay life depicted in the two last chapters, while it kept 
Goldsmith in a state of continual excitement, aggravated the 
malady which was impairing his constitution ; yet his increas- 
ing perplexities in money-matters drove him to the dissipation 
of society as a relief from solitary care. The delays of the 

25 theatre added to those perplexities. He had long since finished 



CHAPTER XXXVII 221 

his new comedy, yet the year 1772 passed away without his 
being able to get it on the stage. No one, uninitiated in the 
interior of a theatre, that little world of traps and trickery, can 
have any idea of the obstacles and perplexities multiplied in the 
way of the most eminent and successful author by the mis- 5 
management of managers, the jealousies and intrigues of rival 
authors, and the fantastic and impertinent caprices of actors. 
A long and baffling negotiation was carried on between Gold- 
smith and Colman, the manager of Covent Garden ; who re- 
tained the play in his hands until the middle of January, 10 
(1773,) without coming to a decision. The theatrical season 
was rapidly passing away, and Goldsmith's pecuniary difficulties 
were augmenting and pressing on him. We may judge of his 
.anxiety by the following letter : — 

" To George Colman, Esq. 15 

" Dear'Sie, — 

" I entreat you'll relieve me from that state of suspense in 
which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever objections 
you have made or shall make to my play, I will endeavor to re- 
move and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges 20 
either of its merits or faults I can never submit to. Upon a 
former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. Garrick, 
he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I 
refused the proposal with indignation : I hope I shall not 
experience as harsh treatment from you as from him. I have, 25 
as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly ; by 
accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way ; 
at any rate, I mast look about to some certainty to be prepared. 
For God's sake take the play, and let us make the best of it, 
and let me have the same measure, at least, which you have 30 
given as bad plays as mine. 

" I am your friend and servant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

Colman returned the manuscript with the blank sides of the 
leaves scored with disparaging comments, and suggested altera- 35 
tions, but with the intimation that the faith of the theatre 
should be kept, and the play acted notwithstanding. Gold- 



222 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

smith submitted the criticisms to some of his friends, who 
pronounced them trivial, unfair, and contemptible, and inti- 
mated that Colman, being a dramatic writer himself, might be 
actuated by jealousy. The play was then sent, with Colman 's 
5 comments written on it, to Garrick ; but he had scarce sent it 
when Johnson interfered, represented the evil that might result 
from an apparent rejection of it by Covent Garden, and under- 
took to go forthwith to Colman, and have a talk with him on 
the subject. Goldsmith, therefore, penned the following note 
10 to Garrick : — 

"Dear Sir, — 

"I ask many pardons for the trouble I gave you yesterday. 
Upon more mature deliberation, and the advice of a sensible 
friend, I began to think it indelicate in me to throw upon you 
15 the odium of confirming Mr. Colman 's sentence. I therefore 
request you will send my play back by my servant ; for having 
been assured of having it acted at the other house, though [ 
confess yours in every respect more to my wish, yet it would be 
folly in me to forego an advantage which lies in my power of 
20 appealing from Mr. Colman 's opinion to the judgment of the 
town. I entreat, if not too late, you will keep this affair a 
secret for some time. 

" I am, dear Sir, your very humble servant, 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 

25 The negotiation of Johnson with the manager of Covent 
Garden was effective. " Colman," he says, " was prevailed on 
at last, by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force," to bring for- 
ward the comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous, or at 
least indiscreet enough to express his opinion that it would not 

30 reach a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad, and 
the interest not sustained ; " it dwindled, and dwindled, and at 
last went out like the snuff of a candle." The effect of his 
croaking was soon apparent within the walls of the theatre. 
Two of the most popular actors. Woodward and Gentleman 

35 Smith, to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Marlow 
were assigned, refused to act them; one of them alleging, in 
excuse, the evil predictions of the manager. Goldsmith was 



CHAPTER XXXVII 223 

advised to postpone the performance of his play until he could 
get these important parts well supplied. "No," said he, "I 
would sooner that my play were damned by bad players than 
merely saved by good acting." 

Quick was substituted for Woodward in Tony Lumpkin, and 5 
Lee Lewis, the harlequin of the theatre, for Gentleman Smith 
in Young Marlow; and both did justice to their parts. 

Great interest was taken by Goldsmith's friends in the suc- 
cess of his piece. The rehearsals were attended by Johnson, 
Cradock, Murphy, Reynolds and his sister, and the whole Hor- 10 
neck connection, including, of course, the Jessamy Bride, whose 
presence may have contributed to flutter the anxious heart of 
the author. The rehearsals went off with great applause ; but 
that Colman attributed to the partiality of friends. He con- 
tinued to croak, and refused to risk any expense in new scenery 15 
or dre^es on a play which he was sure would prove a failure. 

The time was at hand for the first representation, and as yet 
the comedy was without a title. " We are all in labor for a 
name for Goldy's play," said Johnson, who, as usual, took a 
kind of fatherly protecting interest in poor Goldsmith's affairs. 20 
The Old House a Neiu Inn was thought of for a time, but still 
did not please. Sir Joshua Reynolds proposed The Belle's 
Stratagem, an elegant title, but not considered applicable, the 
perplexities of the comedy being produced by the mistake of 
the hero, not the stratagem of the heroine. The name was 25 
afterwards adopted by Mrs. Cowley for one of her comedies. 
The Mistakes of a Night was the title at length fixed upon, to 
which Goldsmith prefixed the words, She Stoops to Conquer. 

The evil bodings of Colman still continued : they were even 
communicated in the box-office to the servant of the Duke of 30 
Gloucester, who was sent to engage a box. Never did the play 
of a popular writer struggle into existence through more 
difficulties. 

In the mean time Foote's " Primitive Puppet-Show," entitled 
the Handsome Housemaid, or Piety in Pattens, had been brought 35 
out at the Haymarket on the 15th of February. All the world, 
fashionable and unfashionable, had crowded to the theatre. 
The street was thronged with equipages, — the doors were 
stormed by the mob. The burlesque was completely success- 



224 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

f nl, and sentimental comedy received its quietus. Even Garrick, 
who had recently befriended it, now gave it a kick, as he saw it 
going down-hill, and sent Goldsmith a humorous prologue to 
help his comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and Gold- 
5 smith, however, were now on very cordial terms, to which the 
social meetings in the circle of the Hornecks and Bunburys 
may have contributed. 

On the 1.5th of March the new comedy was to be performed. 
Those who had stood up for its merits, and been irritated and 

10 disgusted by the treatment it had received from the manager, 
determined to muster their forces, and aid in giving it a good 
launch upon the town. The particulars of this confederation, 
and of its triumphant success, are amusingly told by Cumber- 
land in his memoirs. 

15 " We were not over-sanguine of success, but perfectly de- 
termined to struggle hard for our author. We accordingly 
assembled our strength at the Shakespeare Tavern, in a con- 
siderable body, for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson took 
the chair at the head of a long table, and was the life and soul 

20 of the corps ; the poet took post silentW by his side, with the 
Burkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Caleb Whitefoord, 
and a phalanx of J^orth British, predetermined applauders, 
under the banner of Major Mills, — all good men and true. 
Our illustrious president was in inimitable glee ; and poor 

25 Goldsmith that clay took all his raillery as patiently and com- 
placently as my friend Boswell would have done any day or 
every day of his life. In the mean time we did not forget our 
duty ; and though we had a better comedy going, in which 
Johnson was chief- actor, we betook ourselves in good time to 

30 our separate and allotted posts, and waited the awful drawing 
up of the curtain. As our stations were preconcerted, so were 
our signals for plaudits arranged and determined upon in a 
manner that gave every one his cue where to look for them, 
and how to follow them up. 

35 "We had among us a very worthy and efficient member, long 
since lost to his friends and the world at large, Adam Drum- 
mond, of amiable memory, who was gifted by nature with the 
most sonorous, and at the same time the most contagious laugh 
that ever echoed from the human lungs. The neighing of the 



CHA P TER XXXVII 225 

horse° of the son of Hystaspes was a whisper to it ; the whole 
thunder of the theatre could not drown it. This kind and 
ingenious friend fairly forewarned us that he knew no more 
when to give his fire than the cannon did that was planted on a 
battery. He desired, therefore, to have a flapper° at his elbow, 5 
and I had the honor to be deputed to that office. I planted him 
in an upper box, pretty nearly over the stage, in full view of the 
pit and galleries, and perfectly well situated to give the echo all 
its play through the hollows and recesses of the theatre. The 
success of our manoeuvre was complete. All eyes were upon 10 
Johnson, who sat in a front row of a side-box; and when he 
laughed, everybody thought themselves warranted to roar. In 
the mean time, my friend followed signals with a rattle so 
irresistibly comic, that, when he had repeated it several times, 
the attention of the spectators was so engrossed by his person 15 
and performances, that the progress of the play seemed likely 
to become a secondary object, and 1 found it prudent to insinu- 
ate to him that he might halt his music without any jDrejudice 
to the author ; but alas ! it was now too late to rein him in ; he 
had laughed upon my signal where he found no joke, and now, 20 
unluckily, he fancied that he found a joke in almost everything 
that was said ; so that nothing in nature could be more nial- 
a-propos than some of his bursts every now and then were. 
These were dangerous moments, for the pit began to take 
umbrage; but we carried our point through, and triumphed 25 
not only over Col man's judgment, but our own." 

Much of this statement has been condemned as exaggerated 
or discolored. Cumberland's memoirs have generally been 
characterized as partaking of romance, and, in the present 
instance he had particular motives for tampering with the truth. 30 
He was a dramatic writer himself, jealous of the success of a 
rival, and anxious to have it attributed to the private manage- 
ment of friends. According to various accounts, public and 
private, such management w'as unnecessary, for the piece was 
"received throughout with the greatest acclamations." 35 

Goldsmith, m the present instance, had not dared, as on a 
former occasion, to be present at the first performance. He 
had been so overcome by his apprehensions that, at the prepar- 
atory dinner, he could hardly utter a word, and was so choked 
Q 



226 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

that he could not swallow a mouthful. When his friends 
trooped to the theatre, he stole away to St. James's Park : 
there he was found by a friend, between seven and eight 
o'clock, wandering up and down the Mall like a troubled spirit. 
5 With difficulty he was persuaded to go to the theatre, where 
his presence might be important should any alteration be nec- 
essary. He arrived at the opening of the fifth act, and made 
his way behind the scenes. Just as he entered there was a 
slight hiss at the improbability of Tony Lumpkin's trick on 

10 his mother, in persuading her she was forty miles off, on Crack- 
skull Common, though she had been trundled about on her 
own grounds. " What's that ? what's that ! " cried Goldsmith 
to the manager, in great agitation. " Pshaw ! Doctor," replied 
Colman, sarcastically, " don't be frightened at a squib, when 

15 we've been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gun-powder ! " 
Though of a most forgiving nature. Goldsmith did not easily 
forget this ungracious and ill-timed sally. 

If Colman was indeed actuated by the paltry motives 
ascribed to him in his treatment of this play, he was most 

20 amply punished by its success, and by the taunts, epigrams, 
and censures levelled at him through the press, in which his 
false prophecies were jeered at, his critical judgment called in 
question, and he was openly taxed with literary jealousy. 
So galling and unremitting was the fire, that he at length 

25 wrote to Goldsmith, entreating him " to take him off the rack 
of the newspapers " ; in the mean time, to escape the laugh 
that was raised about him in the theatrical world of London, 
he took refuge in Bath during the triumphant career of the 
comedy. 

30 The following is one of the many squibs which assailed the 
ears of the manager : — 

TO GEORGE COLMAN, ESQ., 

ON THE SUCCESS OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S NEW COMEDY. 

"Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, 
35 Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd ; 

Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 
His next may still be damn'd. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 227 

" As this has 'scaped without a fall, 
To sink his next prepare ; 
New actors hire from Wapping Wall, _ 
And dresses from Rag Fair. 

" For scenes let tatter'd blankets fly, 6 

The prologue Kelly write ; 
Then swear again the piece must die 
Before the author's night. * 

*' Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf. 

To bring to lasting shame, 10 

E'en write the best you can yourself, 
And print it in his name." 

The solitary hiss, which had startled Goldsmith, was ascribed 
by some of the newspaper scribblers to Cumberland himself, 
who was " manifestly miserable " at the delight of the audience, 15 
or to Ossian Macpherson, who was hostile to the whole John- 
son clique, or to Goldsmith's dramatic rival, Kelly. The fol- 
lowing is one of the epigrams which appeared : — 

" At Dr. Goldsmith's merry play, 
All the spectators laugh, they say : 20 

The assertion, sir, I must deny, 
For Cumberland and Kelly cry. 

Bide, si sapis." ° 

Another, addressed to Goldsmith, alludes to Kelly's early 
apprenticeship to stay-making : — 25 

" If Kelly finds fault with the shape of your muse. 
And thinks that too loosely it plays, 
He surely, dear Doctor, will never refuse 
To make it a new Fair of Stays .' " 

Cradock had returned to the country before the production 30 
of the play ; the following letter, written just after the per- 
formance, gives an additional picture of the thorns which 
beset an author in the path of theatrical literature : — 

" My dear Sir, — 

" The play has met with a success much beyond your expec- 35 
tations or mine. I thank you sincerely for your epilogue, 



228 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

which, however, could not be used, but with your permission 
shall be printed. The story in short is this. Murphy sent me 
lather the outline of an epilogue than an epilogue, which was 
to be sung by Miss Catley, and which she approved ; Mrs. 
, Biilkley, hearing this, insisted on throwing up her part " (Miss 
Hcmlcastle) " unless, at3cording to the custoni of the theatre, 
she were permitted to speak the epilogue. In this embarrass- 
ment 1 thought of making a quarrelling epilogue between 
Catley and her, debating ivho should speak the epilogue; but 

10 then Miss Catley refused after I had taken the trouble of draw- 
ing it out. I was then at a loss indeed ; an epilogue was to be 
made, and for none but Mrs. Bulkley. I made one, and Colnian 
thought it too bad to be spoken ; I was obliged, therefore, to 
try a fourth time, and I made a very mawkish thing, as you'll 

15 shortly see. Such is the history of my stage adventures, and 
which I have at last done with. I cannot help saying that I 
am very sick of the stage; and though I believe I shall get 
three tolerable benefits, yet I shall, on the whole, be a loser, 
even in a pecuniary light ; my ease and comfort I certainly lost 

20 while it was in agitation. 

" I am, my dear Cradock, your obliged and obedient servant, 

"Oliver Goldsmith. 

"P. S. — Present my most humble respects to Mrs. Cradock." 

Johnson, who had taken such a conspicuous part in promot- 
25 ing the interest of poor " Goldy," was triumphant at the suc- 
cess of the piece. "I know of no comedy for many years," 
said h,e, "that has so much exhilarated an audience; that has 
answered so much the great end of comedy — making an audi- 
ence merry," 
30 Goldsmith was happy, also, in gleaning applause from less 
authoritative sources. Northcote, the painter, then a youthful 
pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Ralph, Sir Joshua's con- 
fidential man, had taken their stations in the gallery to lead the 
applause in that quarter. Goldsmith asked JSTorthcote's opinion 
35 of the play. The youth modestly declared he could not pre- 
sume to judge in such matters. "Did it make you laugh?" 
"Oh, exceedingly!" "That is all I require," replied Gold- 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 229: 

smith; and rewarded him for his criticism by box-tickets for 
his first benefit-night. 

The comedy was immediately put to press, and dedicated to 
Johnson in the following grateful and affectionate terms : — 

" In inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean 5 
so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some 
honor to inform the public that I have lived many years in 
intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also 
to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a 
character, without impairing the most unaffected piety." 10 

The copyright was transferred to Mr. ISTewbery, according to 
agreement, whose profits on the sale of the work far exceeded 
the debts for which the author in his perplexities had pre- 
engaged it. The sum which accrued" to Goldsmith from his 
benefit-nights afforded but a slight palliation of his pecuniary 15 
difficultjes. His friends, while they exulted in his success, little 
knew of his continually increasing embarrassments, and of the 
anxiety of mind which kept tasking his pen Avhile it impaired 
the ease and freedom of spirit necessary to felicitous composition. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

A Newspaper Attack. —The Evans Affray. — Johnson's Comment. . 

The triumphant success of She Stoops to Conquer, brought 20 
forth, of course, those carpings and cavillings of underling 
scribblers, which are the thorns and briers in the path of suc- 
cessful authors. Goldsmith, though easily nettled by attacks 
of the kind, was at present too well satisfied with the reception 
of his comedy to heed them ; but the following anonymous 25 
letter, which appeared in a public paper, was not to be taken 
with equal equanimity : — 

{For the London Packet.) 
"TO DR. GOLDSMITPI 

" Vo7is vous noyez par vanite.° 30 

" Sir, — The happj'^ knack which you have learned of puffing 
your own compositions provokes me to come forth. You have 



230 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

not been the editor of newspapers and magazines not to dis- 
cover the trick of literary humbug ; but the gauze is so thin 
that the very foolish part of the world see through it, and dis- 
cover the doctor's monkey-face and cloven foot. Your poetic 
5 vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man be- 
lieve it, and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours the 
great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque orang- 
outang's figure in a pier-glass? Was but the lovely H — ^^k 
as much enamored, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in 

10 vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same 
bard of Bedlam ring the changes in the praise of Goldy ! But 
what has he to be either proud or vain of ? The Traveller is a 
flimsy poem, built upon false principles — principles diametri- 
cally opposite to liberty. What is The Good-natured Man but 

15 a poor, water-gruel dramatic dose ? What is The Deserted Vil- 
lage but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without fancy, dig- 
nity, genius, or fire ? And, pray, what may be the last speaking 
pantomime, so praised by the Doctor himself, but an incoherent 
piece of stuff, the figure of a w^oman with a fish's tail, without 

20 plot, incident, or intrigue ? We are made to laugh at stale, 
dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for wit, and grimace 
for humor ; wherein every scene is unnatural and inconsistent 
with the rules, the laws of nature and of the drama ; viz., two 
gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, eat, drink, &c., 

25 and take it for an inn. The one is intended as a lover for the 
daughter ; he talks with her for some hours ; and, when he sees 
her again in a different dress, he treats her as a bar-girl, and 
swears she squinted. He abuses the master of the house, and 
threatens to kick him out of his own doors. The squire, whom 

30 we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the most sensible being 
of the piece; and he makes out a whole act by bidding his 
mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her that his father, 
her own husband, is a highwayman, and that he has come to 
cut their throats ; and, to give his cousin an opportunity to go 

35 off, he drives his mother over hedges, ditches, and through 
ponds. There is not, sweet, sucking Johnson, a natural stroke 
in the whole play but the young fellow's giving the stolen 
jewels to the mother, supposing her to be the landlady. That 
Mr. Colman did no justice to this piece, I honestly allow ; that 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 231 

he told all his friends it would be damned, I positively aver ; 
and, from such ungenerous insinuations, without a dramatic 
merit, it rose to public notice, and it is now the ton to go and 
see it, though I never saw a person that either liked it or ap- 
proved it, any more than the absurd plot of Home's tragedy of 5 
Alonzo. Mr. Goldsmith, correct your arrogance, reduce your 
vanity, and endeavor to believe, as a man, you are of the plain- 
est sort, — and as an author, but a mortal piece of mediocrity. 

" Brise le miroir° infidele 
Qui vous cache la verite. 10 

"Tom Tickle." 

It would be difficult to devise a letter more calculated to wound 
the peculiar sensibilities of Goldsmith. The attacks upon him 
as an author, though annoying enough, he could have tolerated, 
but the» the allusion to his " grotesque " person, to his studious 15 
attempts to adorn it ; and, above all, to his being an unsuccess- 
ful admirer of the lovely H — k (the Jessamy Bride), struck 
rudely upon the most sensitive part of his highly sensitive 
nature. The paragraph, it is said, was first pointed out to him 
by an officious friend, an Irishman, who told him he was bound 20 
in honor to resent it ; but he needed no such prompting. He 
was in a high state of excitement and indignation, and, ac- 
companied by his friend, who is said to have been a Captain 
Higgins, of the marines, he repaired to Paternoster Row, to 
the shop of Evans, the publisher, whom he supposed to be the 25 
editor of the paper. Evans was summoned by his shopman 
from an adjoining room. Goldsmith announced his name. 
"I have called," added he, "in consequence of a scurrilous 
attack made upon me, and an unwarrantable liberty taken 
with the name of a young lady. As for myself, I care little ; 30 
but her name must not be sported with." 

Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and said he 
■^ould speak to the editor. He stooped to examine a file of the 
paper, in search of the offensive article ; whereupon Gold- 
smith's friend gave him a signal, that now was a favorable 35 
moment for the exercise of his cane. The hint was taken as 
quick as given, and the cane was vigorously applied to the 
back of the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in an in- 



232 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

stant, and, being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, returned 
the blows with interest. A lamp hanging overhead was 
broken, and sent down a shower of oil upon the combatants ; 
but the battle raged with uuceasi-ng fury. The shopman 

5 ran off for a constable; but Dr. Kenrick, who happened to be 
in the adjacent room, sallied forth, interfered between the 
combatants, and put an end to the affray. He conducted Gold- 
smith to a coach, in exceedingly battered and tattered plight, 
and accompanied him home, soothing him with much mock 

10 commiseration, though he was generally suspected, and on 
good grounds, to be tlie author of the libel. 

Evans immediately instituted a suit against Goldsmith for 
an assault, but was ultimately prevailed upon to compromise 
the matter, the ]3oet contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh 

15 charity. 

Newspapers made themselves, as may well be supposed, ex- 
ceedingly merry with the combat. Some censured him severely 
for invading the sanctity of a man's own house ; others accused 
him of having, in his former capacity of editor of a magazine, 

20 been guilty of the very offences that he now resented in others. 
This drew from him the following vindication : — 

" To the Public 

"Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing to 
correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, 

25 I beg leave to declare, that, in all my life, I never wrote or 
dictated a single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper 
except a few moral essays under the character of a Chinese, 
about ten years ago, in the Ledger, and a letter, to which I 
signed my name, in the St. James Chronicle. If the liberty of 

30 the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no hand in it. 
" I have always considered the press as the protector of our 
freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak 
against the encroachments of power. What concerns the pub- 
lic most properly admits of a public discussion. But, of late, 

35 the press has turned from defending public interest to making 
inroads upon private life ; from combating the strong to over- 
whelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its 



GHAPTER XXXVIIl 233 

abuse, and the protector has become the tyrant of the people. 
Ill this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow 
the seeds of its own dissolution ; the great must oppose it from 
principle, and the weak from fear; till at last every rank of 
mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with 5 
security from insults. 

" How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are 
indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently es- 
capes in the general censure, I am unable to tell ; all I could 
wish is, that, as the law gives us no protection against the 10 
injury^ so it should give calumniators no shelter after having 
provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the 
public, by being more open, are the more distressing ; by treat- 
ing them with silent contempt we do not pay a sufficient defer- 
ence to the opinion of the world. By recurring to legal redress 15 
we too often expose the weakness of the law, which only serves 
to increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, 
every man should singly consider himself as the guardian of 
the liberty of the press, and, as far as his influence can extend, 
should endeavor to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last 20 
the grave of its freedom. 

" Oliver Goldsmith." 



Boswell, who had just arrived in town, met with this article 
in a newspaper which he found at Dr. Johnson's. The Doctor 
was from home at the time, and Bozzy and Mrs. Williams, in a 25 
critical conference over the letter, determined from the style 
that it .must have been written by the lexicograx^her himself. 
The latter on his return soon undeceived them. " Sir," said 
he to Boswell, "Goldsmith would no more have asked me to 
have wrote such a thing as that for him than he would have 30 
asked me to feed him with a spoon, or do anything else that 
denoted his imbecility. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, 
he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, 
done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done. I sup- 
pose he has been so much elated with the success of his new 35 
comedy, that he has thought everything that concerned him 
must be of importance to the public." 



234 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

Boswell in Holy-Week. — Dinner at Oglethorpe's. — Dinner at Paoli's. — 
The Policy of Truth. — Goldsmith affects Independence of Royalty. 
— ^ Paoli's Compliment. — Johnson's Eulogium on the Fiddle. — Ques- 
tion about Suicide. — Boswell's Subserviency. 

The return of Boswell to town to his task of noting down 
the conversations of Johnson, enables us to glean from his 
journal some scanty notices of Goldsmith. It was now Holy- 
Week, a time during whicli Johnson was particularly solemn 
5 in his manner and strict in his devotions. Boswell, who was 
the imitator of the great moralist in everything, assumed, of 
course, an extra devoutness on the present occasion. " He had 
an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner," said Miss Burney,° 
(afterwards Madame D'Arblay,) " which he had acquired from 

10 constantly thinking, and imitating Dr. Johnson." It would 
seem that he undertook to deal out some second-hand homilies, 
a la Johnson, for the edification of Goldsmith during Holy- 
Week. The poet, whatever might be his religious feeling, 
had no disposition to be schooled by so shallow an apostle. 

15 " Sir," said he in reply, " as I take my shoes from the shoe- 
maker, and my coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from, 
the priest." 

Boswell treasured up the reply in his memory or his memo- 
randum-book. A few days afterwards, the 9th of April, he 

20 kept Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, in orthodox style ; break- 
fasted with him on tea and cross-buns ; went to church with 
him morning and evening; fasted in the interval, and read with 
him in the Greek Testament : then, in the piety of his heart, 
complained of the sore rebuff he had met with in the course of 

25 his religious exhortations to the poet, and lamented that the 
latter should indulge in "this loose. way of talking." "Sir," 
replied Johnson, " Goldsmith knows nothing — he has made up 
his mind about nothing." 

This reply seems to have gratified the lurking jealousy of 

30 Boswell, and he has recorded it in his journal. Johnson, how- 



CHAPTER XXXIX 235 

ever, with respect to Goldsmith, and indeed with respect to 
everybody else, blew hot as well as cold, according to the hu- 
mor he was in. Boswe'll, who was astonished and piqued at 
the continually increasing celebrity of the poet, observed some 
time after to Johnson, in a tone of surprise, that Goldsmith had 5 
acquired more fame than all the officers of the last war who 
were not generals. " Why, sir," answered Johnson, his old feel- 
ing of good-will working uppermost, " you will find ten thousand 
fit to do what they did, before you find one to do what Gold- 
smith has done. You nmst consider that a thing is valued ac- 10 
cording to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in itself 
more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger." 

On tljje 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the 
table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the 
degeneracy of the human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, and 15 
attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson denies the 
fact, and observes, that, even admitting it, luxury could not be 
the cause. It reached but a small proportion of the human race. ■ 
Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not indulge in luxuries ; the 
poor and laboring classes, forming the great mass of mankind, 20 
were out of its sphere. Wherever it could reach them, it strength- 
ened them and rendered them prolific. The conversation was 
not of particular force or point as reported by Bo swell; the 
dinner-party was a very small one, in which there was no 
provocation to intellectual display. 25 

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find 
poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's 
song of the Three Jolly Pigeons, and another, called the Humors 
of Ballamaguery , to a very pretty Irish tune. It was to have 
been introduced in She Stoops to Conquer, but was left out, as 30 
the actress who played the heroine could not sing. 

It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of Gold- 
smith's nature would break out, and he would say and do a 
thousand whimsical and agreeable things that made him the 
life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom conversa- 35 
tion was everything, used to judge Goldsmith too nmch by his 
own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less pro- 
vided than himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of the 
tongue and often the mere lumber of the memory ; others, how- 



236 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

ever, valued him for the native felicity of his thoughts, however 
carelessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow qualities, less 
calculated to dazzle than to endear. " It is amazing," said 
Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking like an 
5 oracle ; " it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows ; he seldom 
comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else." 
" Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, with affectionate prompt- 
ness, " there is no man whose company is more liked" 

Two or three days after the dinner at General Oglethorpe's, 

10 Goldsmith met Johnson again at the table of General Paoli,° 
the hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of an 
Italian History of England, was among the guests ; as was Bos- 
well, to whom we are indebted for minutes of the conversation 
which took place. The question was debated whether Martinelli 

15 should continue his history down to that day. " To be sure he 
should," said Goldsmith. " ^o, sir," cried Johnson, " it would 
give great offence. He would have to tell of almost all the liv- 
ing great what they did not wish told." Goldsmith. — " It 
may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more cautious ; 

20 but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice, may be 
considered as holding the place of a judge, and may speak his 
mind freely." Johnson. — " Sir, a foreigner, when he sends a 
work from the press, ought to be on his guard against catching 
the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the people among whom 

25 he happens to be." Goldsmith. — " Sir, he wants only to sell 
his history, and to tell truth ; one an honest, the other a laudable 
motive." Johnson. — " Sir, they are both laudable motives. It 
is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labors ; but he should 
write so as he may live by them, not so as he may be knocked 

30 on the head. I would advise him to be at Calais before he pub- 
lishes his history of the present age. A foreigner who attaches 
himself to a political party in this country is in the worst state 
that can be imagined; he is looked upon as a mere intermed- 
dler. A native may do it from interest." Boswell. — "Or 

35 principle." Goldsmith. — " There are people who tell a hun- 
dred political lies every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, 
then, one may tell truth with perfect safety." Johnson. — 
"Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has 
disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, a man had rather 



CHAPTER XXXIX 237 

have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he 
does not wish to be told." Goldsmith. — " For my part, I'd tell 
the truth, and shame the devil." Johnson. — " Yes, sir, but the 
devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you 
do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws." 5 
Goldsmith. — "His claws can do you no hurt where you have 
the shield of truth." 

This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed 
the argument in his favor. 

" We talked," writes Boswell, "of the King's coming to see 10 
Goldsmith's new play." " I wish he wo*uld," said Goldsmith, 
adding, however, with an affected indifference, " not that it 
would do me the least good." " Well, then," cried Johnson, 
laughing, " let us say it would do liim good, l^o, sir, this affec- 
tation will not pass, — it is mighty idle. In such a state as 15 
ours, who would not wish to please the chief magistrate ?" 

"I do wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. " I remem- 
ber a line in Dryden : — 

" ' And every poet is the monarch's friend ; ' 

it ought to be reversed." "Nay," said Johnson, "there are 20 
finer lines in Dryden on this subject : — 

" 'For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend.' " 

General Paoli observed that " successful rebels might be." 
" Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. " W^e have no 25 
such phrase," cried Goldsmith. " But have you not the 
thing?" asked Paoli. "Yes," replied Goldsmith, "all our 
happy revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will 
hurt it, till we mend it by another happy revolution." This 
was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism, that quite surprised Boswell, 30 
but must have been relished by Johnson. 

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had 
been construed into a compliment to a lady of distinction, 
whose marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the 
strong disapprobation of the King as a mesalliance. Boswell, 35 
to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the compliment un- 
intentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The General 



238 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

came to his relief. " Monsieur Goldsmith," said lie, '■'■ est comme 
la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, 
sans s'en appercevoir." (Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, which 
casts forth pearls and many other beautiful things without per- 
5 ceiving it.) 

" Tres bien dit, et tres-elegamment/' (very well said, and 
very elegantly,) exclaimed Goldsmith, delighted with so beauti- 
ful a compliment from such a quarter. 

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of Mr. Harris, 

10 of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian. " He is 
what is much better," cried Goldsmith, with prompt good-nature, 
— "he is a worthy, humane man." "Nay, sir," rejoined the 
logical Johnson, " that is not to the purpose of our argument ; 
that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as 

15 Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith found 
he had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him 
out of it. " The greatest musical performers," said he, dexter- 
ously turning the conversation, "have but small emoluments; 
Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." 

20 " That is indeed but little for a man to get," observed Johnson, 
" who does best that which so many endeavor to do. There is 
nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much 
as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do some- 
thing at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give 

25 him a hammer ; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man 
will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy 
one ; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, and he can do 
nothing." 

This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Bos- 

30 well, is a tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith 
and Johnson ; the former heedless, often illogical, always on the 
kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem himself 
by lucky hits ; the latter closely argumentative, studiously sen- 
tentious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously prosaic. 

35 They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, 
on the subject of suicide. " Do you think, sir," said Boswell, 
" that all who commit suicide are mad ? " " Sir," replied John- 
son, " they are not often universally disordered in their intel- 
lects, but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to 



CHAPTER XXXIX 239 

it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another. 
I have often thought," added he, " that after a man has taken 
the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do 
anything, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." 
" 1 don't see that," observed Goldsmith. " Nay, but, my dear 5 
sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see what every 
one else does ? " " It is," replied Goldsmith, " for fear of some- 
thing that he has resolved to kill himself ; and will not that 
timid disposition restrain him ? " " It does not signify," pur- 
sued Johnson, " that the fear of something made him resolve ; 10 
it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution is taken, 
that I argue. Suppose a man, either from fear, or pride, or 
conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself; 
when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He 
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the 15 
head of his army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined 
to kill himself." Boswell reports no more of the discussion, 
though Goldsmith might have continued it with advantage : 
for the very timid disposition, which through fear of something 
was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him 20 
from an act involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible 
to him than death itself. 

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, we have 
scarcely anything but the remarks of Johnson ; it is only by 
accident that he now and then gives us the observations of 25 
others, when they are necessary to explain or set off those of 
his hero. " When in that presence," says Miss Burney, " he was 
unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In truth, 
when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even 
answering anything that was said, or attending to anything that 30 
went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound from that 
voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though merited homage. 
But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it 
excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes gog- 
gled with eagerness ; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of 35 
the Doctor ; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable 
that might be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing 
a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing, as if hoping 
from it latently, or mystically, some information." 



240 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

On one occasion the Doctor detected Bos well, or Bozz}-, as he 
called him, eaves dropping behind his chair, as he was convers- 
ing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. " What are you 
doing there, sir ? " cried he, turning round angrily, and clapping 

5 his hand upon his knee. " Go to the table, sir." 

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which 
raised a smile on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, 
however, at a distance, than, impatient to get again at the side 
of Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of something 

10 to show him, when the Doctor roared after him authoritatively, 
"What are you. thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before 
the cloth is removed ? Come back to your place, sir ; " — and 
the obsequious spaniel did as he was commanded. — "Run- 
ning about in the middle of meals!" muttered the Doctor, 

15 pursing his mouth at the same time to restrain his rising 
risibility. 

Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which w^ould have 
demolished any other man. He had been teasing him with 
many direct questions, such as, " What did you do, sir? — What 

20 did you say, sir?" until the great philologist became perfectly 
enraged. "I will not be put to the question!'' roared he. 
" Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a 
gentleman? I will not be baited with lohat and why; — What 
is this? What is that ? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a 

25 fox's tail bushy? " " Why, sir," replied pilgarlick, " you are so 
good that I venture to trouble you." " Sir," replied Johnson, 
" my being so good is no reason why you should be so ilL" 
"You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on another 
occasion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both." 

30 Boswell's" inveterate disposition to toad, was a sore cause of 
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck, (or 
Affleck). He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion 
to Paoli, but then he was something of a military hero; but 
this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a 

35 kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. " There's 
nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; — "Jamie is 
gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' 
Paoli; he's off wd' the land-louping scoundrel of aCorsican; 
and whose tail do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, 



CHAPTER XL 241 

mon ? A dominie, mon ; an auld dominie ; he keeped a schiile, 
and cau'd it an acaadamy." 

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to 
the dominie did not go unrewarded. 



CHAPTER XL 



Changes in the Literary Club. — Johnson's Objection to Garrick. — 
Election of Boswell. 

THE*Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard 5 
Street, though it took that name some time later) had now 
been in existence several years. Johnson was exceedingly 
chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to its being 
augmented in number. N"ot long after its institution, Sir 
Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. " I like it 10 
much," said little David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you." 
" When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," says Bos- 
well, "he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. ' He'll 
he of us f ' growled he. ' How does he know we will permit him V 
The first duke in England has no right to hold such language.' " 15 

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pre- 
tensions, " Sir," replied Johnson, " he will disturb us by his 
buffoonery." In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale, 
that, if Garrick should apply for admission, he would black- 
ball him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr. 20 
Garrick — your friend, your companion — black-ball him!" 
" Why, sir," replied Johnson, " I love my little David dearly — 
better than all or any of his fiatterers do ; but surely one ought 
to sit in a society like ours, 

" ' Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.' " 25 

The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to 
Garrick, though he bore it without complaining. He could not 
help continually to ask questions about it — what was going on 
there — whether he was ever the subject of conversation. By 
degrees the rigor of the club relaxed : some of the members 30 

R 



242 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by 
neglecting to attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady 
Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and 
recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he had claimed 
5 and regained his seat in the club. The number of members 
had likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it 
originated with Goldsmith. " It would give," he thought, " an 
agreeable variety to their meetings ; for there can be nothing 
new amongst us," said he,; "we have travelled over each other's 

10 minds." Johnson was piqued at the suggestion. " Sir," said 
he, " you have not travelled over my mind, 1 promise you." 
Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his 
mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's sugges- 
tion. Several new members, therefore, had been added ; the 

15 first, to his great joy, was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who was 
now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted his 
election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. 
Another new member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charlemont ; 
and a still more important one was Mr. (afterwards Sir Will- 

2G iam) Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that time a young 
lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar. 

To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now pro- 
posed his devoted follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it 
in a note addressed to Goldsmith, who presided on the evening 

25 of the 23d of April. The nomination was seconded by Beau- 
clerc. According to the rules of the club, the ballot would 
take place at the next meeting (on the 30th) ; there was an 
intervening week, therefore, in which to discuss the preten- 
sions of the candidate. We may easily imagine the discussions 

30 that took place. Boswell had made himself absurd in such a 
variety of ways that the very idea of his admission was ex- 
ceedingly irksome to some of the members. " The honor of 
being elected into the Turk's Head Club," said th6 Bishop of 
St. Asaph, " is not inferior to that of being representative of 

35 Westminster and Surrey ; " what had Boswell done to merit 
such an honor? What chance had he of gaining it? The 
answer was simple : he had been the persevering worshipper, 
if not sycophant of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a 
heart to be won by apparent affection; he stood forth authori- 



CHAPTER XL 243 

tatively in support of his vassal. If asked to state tlie merits 
of the candidate, he summed them up in an indefinite but 
comprehensive word of his own coining : — he was cluhable. 
He moreover gave significant hints that if Boswell were kept 
out he should oppose the admission of any other candidate. 5 
No further opposition was made ; in fact none of the members 
had been so fastidious and exclusive in regard to the club as 
Johnson himself ; and if he were pleased, they were easily 
satisfied : besides, they knew that, with all his faults, Boswell 
was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively social qualities. 10 

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc 
gave a dinner, at his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met 
severat"of the members who were favorable to his election. 
After dinner the latter adjourned to the club, leaving Boswell 
in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his elec- 15 
tion should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety 
which even the charming conversation of Lady Di could not 
entirely dissipate. It was not long before tidings w^ere brought 
of, his election, and he w^as conducted to the place of meeting, 
where, beside the company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr. 20 
Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were 
waiting to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its 
learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could at times " un- 
bend and play the fool " as well as less important bodies. 
Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, and 25 
a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of 
" an old w^oman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid 
in its gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had 
been passing among the members while awaiting the arrival 
of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his 30 
disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a 
right to presume all this from the conduct of Doctor Johnson 
himself. 

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet 
humor, and felt a kind of w^himsical responsibility to protect 35 
the club from the absurd propensities of the very questionable 
associate he had thus inflicted on them. Rising, therefore, as 
Boswell "Altered, he advanced with a very doctorial air, placed 
himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or 



244 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

pulpit, and then delivered, ex cathedra, a mock solemn charge, 
pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member 
of the club ; what he was to do, and especially what he was to 
avoid ; including in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, pry- 
5 ing, questioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often 
grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be regretted 
that Bos well has never thought proper to note down the par- 

■ ticulars of this charge, which, from the well-known characters 
and positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to 

10 the noted charge of Launcelot Gobbo ° to his dog. 



CHAPTER XLI 

Dinner at Dilly's. — Conversations on Natural History. — Intermed- 
dling of Boswell. — Dispute about Toleration. — Johnson's Eebuff 
to Goldsmith ; His Apology. — Man- Worship. — Doctors Major and 
Minor. — A Farewell Visit. 

A FEW days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of 
Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that indefatigable 
biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the Dillys', book- 
sellers, in the Poultry, at which he ]net Goldsmith and John- 

15 son, with several other literary characters. His anecdotes of 
the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson ; for, as 
he observes in his biography, " his conversation alone, or what 
led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this 
work." Still on the present, as on other occasions, he gives 

20 unintentional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's 
good sense, which show that the latter only wanted a less 
prejudiced and more impartial reporter, to put down the 
charge of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The 
conversation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beau- 

25 tif ul subject, on which the poet, from his recent studies, his 
habits of observation, and his natural tastes, must have talked 
with instruction and feeling; yet, though we have much of 
what Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or two of 
Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he 



CHAPTER XLI 245 

pronounced partial ; " the stronger ones," said he, " migrate, the 
others do not." 

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. 
" Birds," said he, " build by instinct ; they never improve ; they 
build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." " Yet 5 
we see," observed Goldsmith, *' if you take away a bird's-nest 
with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again." 
" Sir," replied Johnson, " that is because at first she has full 
time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you men- 
tion, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest 10 
quickly, and consequently it will be slight." " The nidification 
of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, " is what is least known in natural 
history ,''though one of the most curious things in it." While 
conversation was going on in this placid, agreeable, and instruc- 
tive manner, the eternal meddler and busybody, Boswell, must 15 
intrude to put in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters ; two of 
their guests were dissenting clergymen ; another, Mr. Toplady, 
was a clergyman of the established church. Johnson himself 
was a zealous, uncompromising churchman. None but a mar- 
plot like Boswell would have thought, on such an occasion and 20 
in such company, to broach the subject of religious toleration ; 
but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse inclination 
to introduce subjects that he hoped would produce difference 
and debate." In the present instance he gained his point. An 
animated dispute immediately arose, in which, according to Bos- 25 
well's report, Johnson monopolized the greater part of the con- 
versation; not always treating the dissenting clergymen with 
the greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the feelings of 
the mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness. 

. Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some ad- 30 
vantage, but was cut short by flat contradictions when most in 
the right. He sat for a time silent but im23atient under such 
overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with his usual misin- 
terpretation, attributes his " restless agitation " to a wish to get 
in and shine. " Finding himself excluded," continues Boswell, 35 
'^ he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with 
it in his hand, like a gamester who at the end of a long night 
lingers for a little while to see if lie can have a favorable oppor- 
tunity to finish with success." Once he was beginning to speak, 



246 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

\ 

when he was overpowered by the loud voice of Johnson, who 
was at the opposite end of the table, and did not perceive his 
attempt ; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and his 
argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed 
5 in a bitter tone, '•'■Take it." 

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when 
Johnson uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him. Gold- 
smith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his 
own e)ivy and spleen under pretext of supporting another person. 

10 " Sir," said he to Johnson, '' the gentleman has heard you pa- 
tiently for an hour ; pray allow us now to hear him." It was 
a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have 
felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be re- 
proved. '' Sir," said he, sternly, " I was not interrupting the 

15 gentleman ; I was only giving him a signal of my attention. 
Sir, you are impertinent.'" Groldsmith made no reply, but after 
some time went away, having another engagement. 

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and 
Langton to the club, he seized the occasion to make some dis- 

20paraging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just 
then be acceptable to the great lexicographer. " It was a pity," 
he said, " that Goldsmith would on every occasion endeavor to 
shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Langton con- 
trasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his 

25 writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversation ; and on 
being taxed by a lady with silence in company, replied, "Madam, 
I have but ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thou- 
sand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined that Goldsmith had a 
great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking out his 

30 purse. " Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, " and that so often an empty 
purse." 

By the time Johnson arrived, at the club, however, his angry 
feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of 
justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldsmith in com- 

35 pany with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting silent 
and apart, " brooding," as Boswell says, " over the reprimand he 
had received." Johnson's good heart yearned towards him ; and 
knowing his placable nature, " I'll make Goldsmith forgive me," 
whispered he ; then, with a loud voice, " Dr. Goldsmith," said 



CHAPTER XLI 247 

he, " something passed to-day where you and I dined, — I ask 
your pardon." The ire of the poet was extinguished in an in- 
stant, and his grateful affection for the magnanimous though 
sometimes overbearing moralist rushed to his heart. " It must 
be much from you, sir," said he, " that I take ill ! " " And so," 5 
adds Boswell, " the difference was over, and they were on as 
easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual." We 
do not think these stories tell to the poet's disadvantage, even 
though related by Boswell. 

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of his 10 
proper merit ; and must have felt annoyed at times at being- 
undervalued and elbowed aside by light-minded or dull men, 
in their 4)lind and exclusive homage to the literary autocrat. 
It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one occasion, for 
talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive superi- 15 
ority. " Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be a 
republic." On another occasion, when he was conversing in com- 
pany with great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction of 
those around him, an honest Swiss who sat near, one George 
Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Academy, perceiving Dr. 20 
Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, exclaimed, " Stay, 
stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something." " And are 
you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, " that you can com- 
prehend what he says ? " 

This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anec- 25 
dote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the 
point of it. 

He relates another anecdote of the kind on the authority of 
Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening 
in company with the Rev. George Graham, a master of Eton, 30 
M^ho, notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxi- 
cated " to about the pitch of looking at one man and talking to 
another." "Doctor," cried he, in an ecsta.sy of devotion and 
good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, "I should 
be glad to see you at Eton." " I shall be glad to wait upon you," 35 
replied Goldsmith. " No, no ! " cried the other, eagerly ; " 'tis 
not you I mean, Doctor ilfmor, 'tis Doctor Mq/or there." "You 
may easily conceive," said Johnson, in relating the anecdote, 
" what effect this had upon Goldsmith, who was irascible as a 



248 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

hornet." The only comment, however, which he is said to have 
made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than bitterness. 
" That Graham," said he, " is enough to make one commit sui- 
cide." Wiiat more could be said to express the intolerable nui- 
5 sance of a consummate hore f 

We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and 
Johnson which stand recorded by Boswell. The latter called 
on the poet, a few days after the dinner at-Dilly's, to take leave 
of him prior to departing for Scotland ; yet, even in this last 

10 interview, he contrives to get up a charge of " jealousy and 
envy." Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry 
that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland, and en- 
deavors to persuade him that he will be a dead weight "to lug 
along through the Highlands and Hebrides." Any one else, 

15 knowing the character and habits of Johnson, would have 
thought the same ; and no one but Boswell would have sup- 
posed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be 
envied.i 

1 One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing jewa; of esprit is 
20 his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on this tour of which we subjoin 
a few lines. 

" O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, 
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame ; 
Tliou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, 
25 To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north ; 

To frighten grave professors with his roar, 
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore. 

Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, 

Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi ; 
30 Heavens ! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd 

A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround ! 

Yes ! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze, 

And gild a world of darkness with his rays, 

Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail, 
35 A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail ! " 



CHAPTER XLII 249 



CHAPTER XLII 

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. — Disappointment. — 
Negligent Authorship. — Application for a Pension. — Beattie's 
Essay on Truth. — Public Adulation. — A High-minded Rebuke. 

The works which Goldsmith had still in hand being already- 
paid for, and the money gone, some new scheme must be devised 
to provide for the past and the future, — for imiDending debts 
Mdiich threatened to crush him, and expenses which were con- 
tinually^^increasing. He now projected a work of greater com- 5 
pass than any he had yet undertaken : a Dictionary of Arts and 
Sciences on a comprehensive scale, wh-ich. was to occupy a num- 
ber of volumes. For this he received promise of assistance 
from several powerful hands. Johnson was to contribute an 
article on ethics ; Burke, an abstract of his Essay on the Sublime 10 
and Beautiful, an essay on the Berkeleyan system of philosophy, 
and others on political science ; Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay 
on painting; and Garrick, while he undertook on his own part 
to furnish an essay on acting, engaged Dr. Burney to contribute 
an article on music. Here was a great array of talent positively 15 
engaged, while other writers of eminence were to be sought for 
the various departments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the 
whole. An undertaking of this kind, while it did not inces- 
santly task and exhaust his inventive powers by original com- 
position, would give agreeable and profitable exercise to his 20 
taste and judgment in selecting, compiling, and arranging, and 
he calculated to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged graces 
of his style. 

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop 
Percy, who saw it, to have been written with uncommon ability, 25 
and to have had that perspicuity and elegance for which his 
writings are remarkable. This paper, unfortunately, is no 
longer in existence. 

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any 
new plan, were raised to an extraordinary height by the pres-30 
ent project; and well they might be, when we consider the 



250 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

powerful coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed, how- 
ever, to complete disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole of 
Russell Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The 
booksellers," said he, "notwithstanding they had a very good 
5 opinion of his abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, impor- 
tance, and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate of which 
was to depend upon the industry of a man with whose indolence 
of temper and method of procrastination they had long been 
acquainted." 

10 Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by 
the heedlessness with which he conducted his literary under- 
takings. Those unfinished, but paid for, would be suspended 
to make way for some job that was to provide for present 
necessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily 

15 executed, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved 
aside and left " at loose ends," on some sudden call to social 
enjoyment or recreation. 

Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was 
hard at work on his Natural History^ he sent to Dr. Percy and 

20 himself, entreating them to finish some pages of his work 
which lay upon his table, and for which the press was urgent, 
he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They 
met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they 
found everything in disorder, and costly books lying scattered 

25 about on the tables and on the floor; many of the books on 
natural history which he had recently consulted lay open 
among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and 
from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. " Do 
you know anything about birds?" asked Dr. Percy, smiling. 

30 " Not an atom," replied Cradock ; " do you ? " " Not I ! I 
scarcely know a goose from a swan ; however, let us try what 
we can do." They set to work and completed their friendly 
task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made 
such alterations that they could neither of them recognize their 

35 own share. The engagement at Windsor, which had thus 
caused Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multifarious 
engagements, was a party of pleasure with some literary ladies. 
Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the carelessness 
with which he executed works requiring accuracy and research. 



CHAPTER XLII 251 

On the 22d of June he had received payment in advance for a 
Grecian History in two volumes though only one was finished. 
As he was pushing on doggedly at the second volume, Gibbon, 
the historian, called in. " You are the man of all others I 
wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the trouble of 5 
reference to his books. "What was the name of that Indian 
king who gave Alexander the Great so much trouble ? " " Mon- 
tezuma,° " replied Gibbon, sportively. The heedless author was 
about committing the name to paper without reflection, when 
Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, and gave the true name, 10 
Porus. 

This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration ; but 
it was a» multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding 
one, some true and some false, which had impaired the con- 
fidence of booksellers in Goldsmith as a man to be relied on for 15 
a task requiring wide and accurate research, and close and long- 
continued application. The project of the tlniversal Dictionary, 
therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell through. 

The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spa- 
cious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's heart. He w^as still fur- 20 
ther grieved and mortified by the failure of an effort made by some 
of his friends to obtain for him a pension from government. 
There had been a talk of the disposition of the ministry to ex- 
tend the bounty of the crown to distinguished literary men in 
pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their political creed : 25 
when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, however, were laid 
before them, they met no favor. The sin of sturdy indepen- 
dence lay at his door. He had refused to become a ministerial 
hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson Scott, the cabinet 
emissary. The wondering parson had left him in poverty and 30 
"Azs garret" and there the ministry were disposed to suffer him 
to remain. 

In the mean time Dr. Beattie comes out with his Essay on 
Truth, and all the orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm 
of contagious ecstasy. He is cried up as the great champion 35 
of Christianity against the attacks of modern philosophers and 
infidels ; he is feted and flattered in every way. He receives at 
Oxford the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law, at the 
same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The King sends for him, 



252 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

praises his Essay, and gives him a pension of two hundred 
pounds. 

Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to hii 
self when one has thus been given unsolicited to a man he 
5 might without vanity consider so much his inferior. He was 
not one to conceal his feelings. " Here's such a stir," said he 
one day at Thrale's table, " about a fellow that has written one 
book, and I have written so many ! " 

"Ah, Doctor!" exclaimed Johnson, in one of his caustic 

10 moods, " there go two-and-f orty sixpences, you know, to one 
guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which 
Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for saying 
what is called a " good thing." ^o one knew better than him- 
self the comparative superiority of the writings of Goldsmith ; 

15 but the jingle of the sixpences and the guinea was not to be 
resisted. 

" Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, " loves Dr. Beattie, 
but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the sight of so much 
applause as they all bestow upon him. Did he not tell us 

20 so himself, no one would believe he was so exceedingly 
ill-natured." 

He told them so himself because he was too open and unre- 
served to disguise his feelings, and because he really considered 
the praise lavished on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. 

25 It was all, of course, set down to sheer envy and uncharitable- 
ness. To add to his annoyance, he found his friend. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He had painted 
a full-length portrait of Beattie decked in the doctor's robes in 
which he had figured at Oxford, with the Essay on Truth under 

30 his arm and the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire fig- 
ured as one of the demons of infidelity, sophistry, and false- 
hood, driven into utter darkness. 

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life ; he had been 
his admirer and his biographer ; he grieved to find him receiv- 

35 ing such an insult from the classic pencil of his friend. " It is 
unworthy of you," said he to Sir Joshua, " to debase so high a 
genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie 
and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's 
fame will last forever. Take care it does not perpetuate this 



CHAPTER XLIII 253 

picture to the shame of such a man as you." This noble and 
high-minded rebuke is the only instance on record of any re- 
proachful words between the poet and the painter ; and we are 
happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of their 
intercourse. 5 



CHAPTER XLIII 

Toil witljput Hope. — The Poet in the Green-Room; In the Flower- 
Garden ; At Vauxhall; Dissipation without Gayety. — Cradock in 
Town; Friendly Sympathy; A Parting-Scene; An Invitation to 
Pleasure. 

Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the hopes 
which had recently cheered and animated him, Goldsmith 
found the labor at his half-finished tasks doubly irksome from 
the consciousness that the completion of them could not relieve 
him from his pecuniary embarrassments. His impaired health, lO 
also, rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary 
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of 
thought necessary for original composition. He lost his usual 
gayety and good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and 
irritable. Too proud of spirit to seek sympathy or relief from 15 
his friends, for the pecuniary difficulties he had brought upon 
himself by his eri'ors and extravagance, and unwilling, perhaps, 
to make known their amount, he buried his cares and anxieties 
in his own bosom, and endeavored in company to keep up his 
usual air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his conduct an 20 
appearance of fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from 
moodiness to mirth, and from silent gravity to shallow 
laughter; causing surprise and ridicule in those who were not 
aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath. 

His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage 25 
to him ; it drew upon him a notoriety which he was not always 
in the mood or the vein to act up to. " Good heavens, Mr. 
Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket Theatre, " what 
a humdrum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our green- 



254 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry ! " " The 
reason of that, madam," replied Foote, " is because the Muses 
are better company than the players." 

Beauclerc's letters to his friend. Lord Charlemont, who was 
5 absent in Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the 
whereabout of the poet during the present year. " I have been 
but once to the club since you left England," writes he ; " we 
were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity." With 
Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished and 

10 pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charle- 
mont returns to England, to bring over the whole club, and let 
them loose upon him to drive him home by their peculiar habits 
of annoyance ; — -Johnson shall spoil his books ; Goldsmith shall 
pull his flowers ; and last, and most intolerable of all, Boswell 

15 shall — talk to him. It would appear that the poet, who had a 
passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his time in the 
garden when on a visit to a coantry-seat, much to the detri- 
ment of the flower-beds and the despair of the gardener. 

The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had 

20 not his usual solace of a country retreat, his health was im- 
paired and his spirits depressed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 
perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his 
company. In the course of their interchange of thought. Gold- 
smith suggested to liim the story of Ugolino,° as a subject for 

25 his pencil. The painting founded on it remains a memento of 
their friendship. 

On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall, at 
that time a place in high vogue, and which had once been to 
Goldsmith a scene of Oriental splendor and delight. We 

30 have, in fact, in the Citizen of the World a picture of it as 
it had struck him in former years and in his happier moods. 
" Upon entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher, 
" I found every sense occupied with more than expected pleas- 
ure : the lights everywhere glimmering through the scarcely 

35 moving trees ; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness 
of the night; the natural concert of the birds in the more 
retired part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by 
art; the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the 
tables spread with various delicacies, — all consj)ired to fill my 



CHAPTER XLIII 255 

imagination with the visionary happiness of the Arabian law- 
giver, and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration." ^ 

Everything now, however, is seen with diiferent eyes ; with 
him it is dissipation without pleasure ; and he finds it im- 
possible any longer, by mingling in the gay and giddy throng 5 
of apparently prosperous and happy beings, to escape from the 
carting care which is clinging to his heart. 

His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town towards autumn, 
when all the fashionable world was in the country, to give his 
wife the benefit of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings in Nor- 10 
folk Sfreet, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed 
most of his mornings with him. "I found him," he says, 
'' much altered and at times very low. He wished vde to look 
over and revise some of his works ; but, with a select friend or 
two, I was more pressing that he should publish by subscrip-15 
tion his two celebrated poems of the Traveller and the De- 
serted Village, with notes." The idea of Cradock was, that 
the subscription would enable w^ealthy persons, favorable to 
Goldsmith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wound- 
ing his pride. " Goldsmith," said he, " readily gave up to me 20 
his private copies, and said, ' Pray do what you please with 
them.' But whilst he sat near me, he rather submitted to 
than encouraged my zealous proceedings. 

"I one morning called upon him, however, and found hira 
infinitely better than I had expected ; and, in a kind of exult- 25 
ing style, he exclaimed, '■ Here are some of the best of my prose 
writings ; / have been hard at work since midnight, and I desire 
you to examine them.' ' These,' said I, ' are excellent indeed.' 
' They are,' replied he, '■ intended as an introduction to a body 
of arts and sciences.' " 30 

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the frag- 
ments of his shipwreck ; the notes and essays, and memoranda 
collected for his dictionary and proposed to found on them a 
work in two volumes, to be entitled A Survey of Experimental 
Philosophy. 35 

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the pro- 
jected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise, 
but the heart was failing him ; his talent at hoping, which gave 
1 Citizen of the World, letter Ixxi. 



256 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

hini buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost at an 
end. 

Cradock's farewell-scene with him is told in a simple but 
touching manner. 
5 " The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, I in- 
sisted upon his dining with us. He replied, ' I will, but on one 
condition, that you will not ask me to eat anything.' 'Nay,' 
said I, 'this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, as 
we are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that you would 

10 have named something you might have relished.' ' Well,' was 
the reply, 'if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will 
certainly wait upon you.' 

"The' Doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers 
and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink he amused himself as 

15 well as he could. I had ordered from the tavern some fish, a 
roasted joint of lamb, and a tart ; and the Doctor either sat 
down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he 
took some wine with biscuits ; but I was obliged soon to leave 
him for a while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next 

20 day's journey. On my return, coffee was ready, and the Doctor 
appeared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a 
favorite with him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk 
and remark as usual, but all was force. He stayed till mid- 
night, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most 

25 cordially shook hands at the Temple-gate." Cradock little 
thought that this was to be their final parting. He looked 
back to it with mournful recollections in after-years, and la- 
mented that he had not remained longer in town at every 

• inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet. 

30 The latter continued in town all the autumn. - At the open- 
ing of the Opera- House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, 
an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical 
exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord 
Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it 

35 would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, 
to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Gold- 
smith may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been 
lost to the world, although it was received with great applause 
by a crowded and brilliant audience. 



CHAPTER XLIII 257 

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was 
gathering over the poet. Towards the end of the year he 
receives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country 
Christmas! — with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and 
the joyous revelry of the oaken hall, — what a contrast to the 5 
loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple ! It is not to 
be resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and 
means V His purse is empty ; his booksellers are already in 
advance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. 
Their mutual intimacy at Barton may have suggested him as 10 
an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been 
paid; and Newbery's note pledged as a security, has never 
been taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now 
asked for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred; to insure 
the payment, he now offers, besides iN'ewbery's note, the trans- 15 
fer of the comedy of the Good-natured Man to Drury Lane, 
with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in 
reply, evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes signifi- 
cantly to a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for 
him, and offers to furnish the money required on his own 20 
acceptance. 

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of grati- 
tude and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and 
the smiles of its fair residents. "My dear friend," writes he, 
"I thank you. 1 wish I could do something to serve you. 1 25 
shall have a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, 
that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will 
make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. ... I will 
draw upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, and 
your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go 30 
down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, 
for he has my heart. Ever, 

"Oliver Goldsmith." 

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, 
by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care 35 
and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his 
desolate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas 
fireside at Barton. 



258 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



CHAPTER XLIV 

A Return to Drudgery; Forced Gayety; Retreat to the Country; The 
Poem of Retaliation. — Portrait of Garrick ; Of Goldsmith ; Of Rey- 
nolds. — Illness of the Poet; His Death; Grief of his Friends. — A 
Last Word respecting the Jessamy Bride. 

The Barton festivities are over ; Christmas, with all its 
home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream; the 
Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, 
and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor 
5 abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multi- 
plicity of tasks. His Animated Nature^ so long delayed, so 
often interrupted, is at length announced for publication, 
though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is 
preparing a third History of England, to be compressed and 

10 condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. He is revis- 
ing his Inquiry into Polite Learning, for which he receives the 
pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present scantiness 
of purse; he is arranging his Survey of Experimental Philosophy, 
and he is translating the Comic Romance of Scarron.° Such is a 

15 part of the various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by 
which his head is made weary and his heart faint. " If there 
is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter Scott, "which lowers 
the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of a slave, it is 
that which is exacted by literary composition, when the heart 

20 is not in unison with the work upon which the head is em- 
ployed." Add to the unhappy author's task sickness, sorrow, 
or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of 
the bondsman becomes light in comparison. Goldsmith again 
makes an effort to rally his spirits by going into gay society. 

25 "Our Club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th of 
February, " has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and 
Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they 
have no time." This shows how little Beauclerc was the com- 
panion of the poet's mind, or could judge of him below the sur- 

30 face. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless dissipation, 



CHAPTER XLIV 259 

could have told a different story of his companion's heart-sick 
gayety. 

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his 
chambers in the Temple ; the last of which was a dinner to 
Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook 5 
with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The 
first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a sec- 
ond, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Reynolds 
declined to partake of it ; the rest of the company, understand- 
ing their motives, followed their example, and the dishes went 10 
from tlae table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent 
and well-intended rebuke. 

The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any 
length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions 
and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not 15 
the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too 
tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet, and cheap and 
healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two 
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrange- 
ments to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the 20 
month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there 
to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture, when in- 
spiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extin- 
guished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set it 
in a blaze. ' 25 

He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, 
some of them members of the Literary Club, who dined to- 
gether occasionally at the St. James's Coffee-House. At these 
dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one occa- 
sion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized the 30 
company to write epitaphs on him, as " The late Dr. Gold- 
smith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting 
off his peculiarities. The only one extant was written by Gar- 
rick, and has been preserved, very probably by its pungency : — 

" Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 35 

Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll." 

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming 
from such a quarter. He was not very ready at repartee ; but 



260 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

he took his time, and in the interval of his various tasks con- 
cocted a series of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of 
Retaliation, in which the characters of his distinguished in- 
timates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous 
5 praise and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem, for its 
graphic truth, its nice discrimination, its terse good sense, and 
its shrewd knowledge of the world, must have electrified the 
club almost as much as the first appearance of The Traveller, 
and let them still deeper into the character and talents of the 

to man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt. Re- 
taliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and 
balanced all his previous deficiencies. 

The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in 
t?ie poem. When the poet came to touch it off, he had some 

15 lurking piques to gratify, which the recent attack had revived. 
He may have forgotten David's cavalier treatment of him, in 
the early days of his comparative obscurity ; he may have for- 
given his refusal of his plays ; but Garrick had been capricious 
in his conduct in the times of their recent intercourse : some- 

20 times treating him with gross familiarity, at other times affect- 
ing dignity and reserve, and assuming airs of superiority ; 
frequently he had been facetious and witty in company at his 
expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the couplet just quoted. 
Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights and shadows of his 

25 character with a free hand, and at the same time gave a side- 
hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Kenrick, 
in making them sycophantic satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, 
however, was void of gall even in his revenge, and his very 
satire was more humorous than caustic : — 

30 " Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, 

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine ; 
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 

35 The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 

Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, 
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. 
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting. 

40 With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 



CHAPTER XLIV 261 

He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day : 

Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 

If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, 

For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back. 5 

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; 

Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease, 

Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 10 

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls° so grave, 

"VHiat a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! 

How did Grub Street reecho the shouts that you raised 

While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised ! 15 

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies. 

To act as an angel and mix with the skies : 

Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill. 

Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 

Old Shakspeare receive him with praise and with love, 20 

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above." 

This portion of Retaliation soon brought a retort from Gar- 
rick, which we insert, as giving something of a likeness of 
Goldsmith, though in broad caricature : — 

" Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow, 25 

Go fetch me some clay — I will make an odd fellow : 
Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross. 
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross ; 
Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions, 
A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions ; 30 

Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking, 
Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion and raking. 
With the love of a wench let his writings be chaste ; 
Tip his tongue with strange matter, his lips with fine taste ; 
That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail, 35 

Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail ; 
For the joy of each sex on the world I'll bestow it. 
This scholar, rake. Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet. 
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame, 
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name ; 40 

When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, 
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here." 

The charge of raking, so repeatedly advanced in the fore- 
going lines, must be considered a sportive one, founded, per- 



262 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

haps, on an incident or two within Garrick's knowledge, but 
not borne out by the course of Goldsmith's life. He seems to 
have had a tender sentiment for the sex, but perfectly free 
from libertinism. Neither was he an habitual gamester. The 

5 strictest scrutiny has detected no settled vice of the kind. He 
was fond of a game of cards, but an unskilful and careless 
player. Cards in those days were universally introduced into 
society. High play was, in fact, a fashionable amusement, as 
at one time was deep drinking; and a man might occasionally 

10 lose large sums, and be beguiled into deep potations, without 
incurring the character of a gamester or a drunkard. Poor 
Goldsmith, on his advent into high society, assumed fine no- 
tions with fine clothes; he was thrown occasionally among high 
players, men of fortune who could sport their cool hundred as 

15 carelessly as his early comrades at Ballymahon could their 
half-crowns. Being at all times magnificent in money-matters, 
he may have played with them in their own way, without con- 
sidering that what was sport to them to him was ruin. Indeed, 
part of his financial embarrassments may have arisen from 

20 losses of the kind, incurred inadvertently, not in the indal- 
gence of a habit. " I do not believe Goldsmith to have deserved 
the name of gamester," said one of his contemporaries ; he 
liked cards very well, as other people do, and lost and won 
occasionally, but as far as I saw or heard, and I had many 

25 opportunities of hearing, never any considerable sum. If he 
gamed with any one, it was probably with Beauclerc, but I do 
not know that such was the case." 

Retaliation, as we have already observed, was thrown off in 
parts, at intervals, and was never completed. Some characters, 

30 originally intended to be introduced, remained unattempted ; 
others were but partially sketched — such as the one of Rey- 
nolds, the friend of his heart, and which he commenced with a 
felicity which makes us regret that it should remain unfinished. 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
35 He has not left a wiser or better behind. 

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 



CHAPTER XLIV 263 

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 

When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing : 

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 

He shifted his trumpet ° and only took snuff. 

By flattery unspoiled ' ' 5 

The friendly portrait stood unfinished on the easel ; the 
hand of the artist had failed ! An access of a local complaint, 
under which he had suffered for some time past, added to a 
general prostration of health, brought Goldsmith back to town 
before he had well settled himself in the country. The local 10 
complaint subsided, but was followed by a low nervous fever. 
He was not aware of his critical situation, and intended to be 
at the club on the 25th of March, on which occasion Charles 
Fox, Sir Charles Bunbury (one of the Horneck connection), 
and two other new members were to be present. In the after- 15 
noon, however, he felt so unwell as to take to his bed, and his 
symptoms soon acquired sufficient force to keep him there. 
His malady fluctuated for several days, and hopes were enter- 
tained of his recovery, but they proved fallacious. He had 
skilful medical aid and faithful nursing, but he would not fol- 20 
low the advice of his physicians, and persisted in the use of 
James's powders, which he had once found beneficial, but 
which were now injurious to him. His appetite was gone, his 
strength failed him, but his mind remained clear, and was per- 
haps too active for his frame. Anxieties and disappointments 25 
which had previously sapped his constitution, doubtless aggra- 
vated his present complaint and rendered him sleepless. In 
reply to an inquiry of his physician, he acknowledged that 
his mind was ill at ease. This was his last reply, he was too 
weak to talk, and in general took no notice of what was said 30 
to him. He sank at last into a deep sleep, and it was hoped a 
favorable crisis had arrived. He awoke, however, in strong 
convulsions, which continued without intermission until he 
expired, on the fourth of April, at five o'clock in the morning ; 
being in the forty-sixth year of his age. 35 

His death was a shock to the literary world, and a deep 
affliction to a wide circle of intimates and friends; f or, wdth 
all his foibles and peculiarities, he was fully as much beloved 
as he was admired. Burke, on hearing the news, burst into 



264 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

tears. Sir Joshua Reynolds threw by his pencil for the day, , 
and grieved more than he had done in times of great family' 
distress. " I was abroad at the time of his death," writes Dr. 
M'Donnell, the youth whom when in distress he had employed 
5 as an amanuensis, " and I wept bitterly when the intelligence 
first reached me. A blank came over my heart as if 1 had lost 
one of my nearest relatives, and was followed for some days by 
a feeling of despondency." Johnson felt the blow deeply and 
gloomily. In writing some time afterwards to Boswell, he 

10 observed : " Of poor Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told 
more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever 
made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His 
debts began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. 
Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed no less than two thou- 

15 sand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before ? " 

Among his debts were seventy-nine pounds due to his tailor, 
Mr. William Filby, from whom he had received a new suit but 
a few days before his death. " My father," said the younger 
Filby, " though a loser to that amount, attributed no blame to 

20 Goldsmith ; he had been a good customer, and, had he lived, 
would have paid every farthing." Others of his tradespeople 
evinced the same confidence in his integrity, notwithstanding 
his heedlessness. Two sister milliners in Temple Lane, who 
had been accustomed to deal with him, were concerned when 

25 told, some time before his death, of his pecuniary embarrass- 
ments. " Oh, sir," said they to Mr. Cradock, "sooner persuade 
him to let us work for him gratis than apply to any other ; we 
are sure he will pay us when he can." 

On the stairs of his apartment there was the lamentation of 

30 the old and infirm, and the sobbing of women ; poor objects 
of his charity, to whom he had never turned a deaf ear, even 
when struggling himself with poverty. 

But there was one mourner whose enthusiasm for his memory, 
could it have been foreseen, might have soothed the bitterness 

35 of death. After the coffin had been screwed down, a lock of 
his hair was requested for a lady, a particular friend, who 
wished to preserve it as a remembrance. It was the beautiful 
Mary Horneck — the Jessamy Bride. The coffin was opened 
again, and a lock of hair cut off ; which she treasured to her 



CHAPTER XLIV 265 

dying day. Poor Goldsmith ! could he have foreseen that such 
a memorial of him was to be thus cherished ! 

One word more concerning this lady, to whom we have so 
often ventured to advert. She survived almost to the present 
day. Hazlitt met her at Northcote's painting-room, about 5 
twenty years since, as Mrs. Gwyn, the widow of a General 
Gwyn of the army. She was at that time upwards of seventy 
years of age. Still, he said, she was beautiful, beautiful even 
in years. After she was gone, Hazlitt remarked how handsome 
she still was. "I do not know," said Northcote, "why she is 10 
So kind AS to come to see me, except that I am the last link in 
the chain that connects her with all those she most esteemed 
when young — Johnson, Keynolds, Goldsmith — and remind 
her of the most delightful period of her life." " JSTot only so," 
observed Hazlitt, " but you remember what she was at twenty ; 15 
and you thus bring back to her the triumphs of her youth — 
that pride of beauty, which must be the more fondly cherished 
as it has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the bosom 
of its once lovely possessor. In her, however, the Graces had 
triumphed over time ; she was one of Ninon de I'Enclos's ° 20 
people, of the last of the immortals. I could almost fancy 
the shade of Goldsmith in the room, looking round with 
complacency." 

The Jessamy Bride survived her sister upwards of forty 
years, and died in 1840, within a few days of completing her 25 
eighty-eighth year. " She had gone through all the stages of 
life," says Northcote, " and had lent a grace to each." How- 
ever gayly she may have sported with the half-concealed 
admiration of the poor awkward poet in the heyday of her 
youth and beauty, and however much it may have been made 30 
a subject of teasing by her youthful companions, she evidently 
prided herself in after -years upon having been an object of 
his affectionate regard'; it certainly rendered her interesting 
throughout life in the eyes of his admirers, and has hung a 
poetical wreath above her grave. 35 



266 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

CHAPTER XLV 

The Funeral. — The Monument. — The Epitaph. — Concludmg Remarks. 

In the wai-m feeling of the moment, while the remains of 
the poet were scarce cold, it was determined by his friends to 
honor them by a public funeral and a tomb in Westminster 
Abbey. His very pall-bearers were designated : Lord Shel- 
5 burne. Lord Lowth, Sir Joshua Reynolds ; the Hon. Mr. Beau- 
clerc, Mr. Burke, and David Garrick. This feeling cooled 
down, however, when it was discovered that he died in debt, 
and had not left wherewithal to pay for such expensive obse- 
quies. Five days after his death, therefore, at five o'clock of 

10 Saturday evening, the 9th of April, he was privately interred 
in the burying-ground of the Temple Church; a few persons 
attending as mourners, among whom we do not find specified 
any of his peculiar and distinguished friends. The chief 
mourner was Sir Joshua Reynolds's nephew. Palmer, after- 

15 wards Dean of Cashel. One person, however, from whom it 
was but little to be expected, attended the funeral and CAdnced 
real sorrow on the occasion. This was Hugh Kelly, once the. 
dramatic rival of the deceased, and often, it is said, his anony- 
mous assailant in the newspapers. If he had really been guilty 

20 of this basest of literary offences, he was punished by the stings 
of remorse, for we are told that he shed bitter tears over the 
grave of the man he had injured. His tardy atonement only 
provoked the lash of some unknown satirist, as the following 
lines will show : — 

25 " Hence Kelly, who years, without honor or shame, 

Had been sticking his bodkin in Oliver's fame, 
Who thought, like the Tartar, by this to inherit 
His genius, his learning, simplicity, spirit; 
Now sets every feature to weep o'er his fate, 

30 And acts as a mourner to blubber in state." 

One base wretch deserves to be mentioned, the reptile Ken- 
rick, who, after having repeatedly slandered Goldsmith, while 
living, had the audacity to insult his memory when dead. The 



CHAPTER XLV 267 

following distich is sufficient to show his malignancy, and to 
hold him up to execration : — 

" By his own art, who justly died, 
A blund'ring, artless suicide : 

Share, earthworms, share, since now he's dead, g 

HisTnegrim, maggot-bitten head." 

This scurrilous epitaph produced a burst of public indigna- 
tion, that awed for a time even the infamous Kenrick into silence. 
On the other hand, the press teemed with tributes in verse and 
prose to* the memory of the deceased ; all evincing the mingled 10 
feeling of admiration for the author and affection for the man. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club set on foot a sub- 
scription, and raised a fund to erect a monument to his memory, 
in Westminster Abbey. It was executed by NoUekens, and con- 
sisted simply of a bust of the poet in profile, in high relief, in a 15 
medallion, and was placed in the area of a pointed arch, over 
the south door in Poet's Corner, between the monuments of Gay 
and the Duke of Argyle. Johnson furnished a Latin epitaph, 
which was read at the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where sev- 
eral members of the club and other friends of the deceased were 20 
present. Though considered by them a masterly composition, 
they thought the literary character of the poet not defined with 
sufficient exactness, and they preferred that the epitaph should 
be in English rather than Latin, as " the memory of so eminent 
an English writer ought to be perpetuated in the language to 25 
which his works were likely to be so lasting an ornament." 

These objections were reduced to writing, to be respectfully 
submitted to Johnson, but such was the awe entertained of his 
frown, that every one shrank from putting his name first to the 
instrument; whereupon their names were written about it in a 30 
circle, making what mutinous sailors call a Round Robin. John- 
son received it half graciously, half grimly. " He was willing," 
he said, " to modify the sense of the epitaph in any manner the 
gentlemen pleased ; l)ut he never icould consent to disgrace the walls 
of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription.'" Seeing the 35 
names of Dr. Warton and Edmund Burke among the signers 
" he wondered," he said, " that Joe Warton, a scholar by profes- 
sion, should be such a fool ; and should have thought thatMund 



268 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Burke would have had more sense." The following is the epi- 
taph as it stands inscribed on a white marble table beneath the 
bust : — 

" OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, i 

3 Poetse, Physici, Historic!, 

Qui nullum fer^ scribendi genus 

Non tetigit. 
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : 
Sive risus essent movendi, 
10 Sive lacrymae, 

Affectuum potens at lenis dominator: 
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis, 
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus : 
Hoc monument© memoriam coluit 
15 Sodalium amor, 

Amicorum fides, 
Lectorum veneratio. 
Natus in Hiberniti Fornise Longfordiensis, 
In loco cui nomen Pallas, 
20 Nov. XXIX. MDCCXXXi. ; 

Eblanas Uteris institutus ; 

Obiit Londini, 

April IV. MDCCLxxiv." 

We shall not pretend to follow these anecdotes of the life of 
25 Goldsmith with any critical dissertation on his writings; their 
merits have long since been fully discussed, and their station in 
the scale of literary merit permanently established. They have 
outlasted generations of works of higher power and wider scope, 
and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, for they 

1 The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's 
"Johnson": — 

"OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH — 

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, 
Who left scarcely any style of writing 
Untouched, 
And touched nothing that he did not adorn; 
Of all the passions, 
' "Whether smiles were to be moved 

Or tears, 
A powerful yet gentle master ; 



CHAPTER XLV 269 

have that magic charm of style by which works are embalmed 
to perpetuity. J^either shall we attempt a regular analysis of 
the character of the poet, but will indulge in a few desultory 
remarks in addition to those scattered throughout the preceding- 
chapters. 5 

Never was the trite, because sage apothegm, that "The 
child is father to the man," more fully verified than in the case 
of Goldsmith. He is shy, awkward, and blundering in child- 
hood, yet full of sensibility ; he is a butt for the jeers and jokes 
of his companions, but apt to surprise and confound them by 10 
sudden and witty repartees ; he is dull and stupid at his tasks, 
yet an eager and intelligent devourer of the travelling tales and 
campaigning stories of his half military pedagogue ; he may be 
a dunce, but he is already a rhymer ; and his early scintillations 
of poetry awaken the expectations of his friends. He seems 15 
from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one 
bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in 
his cradle by the " good people " who haunted his birthplace, 
the old goblin mansion on the banks of the Inny. 

He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so 20 
term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail 
at school, academy, or college : they unfit him for close study 
and practical science, and render him heedless of everything 
that does not address itself to his poetical imagination and 
genial and festive feelings ; they dispose him to break away 25 

111 genius, sublime, vivid, versatile, 
In style, elevated, clear, elegant — 
The love of companions. 
The fidelity of friends, 
And the veneration of readers, 
Have by this monument honored the memory. 
He was born in Ireland, 
At a place called Pallas, 
[In the parish] of Fornev, [and county] of Longford, 
On the 2Mh Nov., 1731, 
Educated at [the University of] Dublin, 
And died in London, 
4th April, 1774."* 

* Not correct. The true date of birth was 10th Nov., 1728, as given 
on page 6. 



270 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted 
streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country 
like a gypsy in quest of odd adventures. 

As if confiding in these delusive gifts, he takes no heed of 
5 the present nor care for the future, lays no regular and solid 
foundation of knowledge, follows out no plan, adopts and dis- 
cards those recommended by his friends, at one time prepares 
for the ministry, next turns to the law, and then fixes upon 
medicine. He repairs to Edinburgh, the great emporium of 

10 ra.edical science, but the fairy gifts accompany him ; he idles 
and frolics away his time there, imbibing only such knowledge 
as is agreeable to him ; makes an excursion to the poetical regions 
of the highlands ; and having walked the hospitals for the cus- 
tomary time, sets off to ramble over the Continent, in quest of 

15 novelty rather than knowledge. His whole tour is a poetical 
one. He fancies he is playing the philosopher while he is really 
playing the poet ; and though professedly he attends lectures 
and visits foreign universities, so deficient is he on his return, 
in the studies for which he set out, that he fails in an exami- 

20 nation as a surgeon's mate ; and while figuring as a doctor of 
medicine, is outvied on a point of practice by his apothecary. 
Baffled in every regular pursuit, after trying in vain some of 
the humbler callings of commonplace life, he is driven almost 
by chance to the exercise of his pen, and here the fairy gifts 

25 come to his assistance. For a long time, however, he seems 
unaware of the magic properties of that pen : he uses it only as 
a makeshift until he can find a legitimate means of support. He 
is not a learned man, and can write but meagrely and at second- 
hand on learned subjects ; but he has a quick convertible talent 

30 that seizes lightly on the points of knowledge necessary to the 
illustration of a theme : his writings for a time are desultory, the 
fruits of what he has seen and felt, or what he has recently and 
hastily read ; but his gifted pen transmutes everything into gold, 
and his own genial nature reflects its sunshine through his pages. 

35 Still unaware of his powers he throws off his writings anony- 
mously, to go with the writings of less favored men ; and it is a 
long time, and after a bitter struggle with poverty and humili- 
ation, before he acquires confidence in his literary talent as a 
means of support, and begins to dream of reputation. 



I 



CHAPTER XLV 271 

From this time his pen is a wand of power in his hand, and 
he has only to use it discreetly, to make it competent to all his 
wants. But discretion is not a part of Goldsmith's nature ; and 
it seems the property of these fairy gifts to be accompanied by 
moods and temperaments to render their effect precarions. The 6 
heedlessness of his early days ; his disposition for social enjoy- 
ment ; his habit of throwing the present on the neck of the 
future, still continue. His- expenses forerun his means ; he in- 
curs debts on the faith of what his magic pen is to produce, 
and then, under the pressure of his debts, sacrifices its produc- 10 
tions fdl* prices far below their value. It is a redeeming cir- 
cumstance in his prodigality that it is lavished oftener upon 
others than upon himself ; he gives without thought or stint, 
and is the continual dupe of his benevolence and his trustfnlness 
in human nature. We may say of him as he says of one of his 15 
heroes, " He could not stifle the natural impulse which he had 
to do good, but frequently borrowed money to relieve the dis- 
tressed ; and when he knew not conveniently where to borrow, 
he has been observed to shed tears as he passed through the 
wretched suppliants who attended his gate." ... 20 

"■ His simplicity in trusting persons whom he had no previous 
reasons to place confidence in, seems to be one of those lights of 
his character which, while they impeach his understanding, do 
honor to his benevolence. The low and the timid are ever sus- 
picious ; but a heart impressed with honorable sentiments, 25 
expects from others sympathetic sincerity." ^ 

His heedlessness in pecuniary matters, which had rendered his 
life a struggle with poverty even in the days of his obscurity, 
rendered the struggle still more intense when his fairy gifts had 
elevated him into the society of the wealthy and luxurious, and 30 
imposed on his simple and generous spirit fancied obligations 
to a more ample and bounteous display. 

" How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic, "that in 
all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever sul- 
lied the robe of his modest and graceful Muse ? How amidst all 35 
that love of inferior company, which never to the last forsook 
him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of 
vulgarity ? " 

1 Goldsmith's Life of Ifash. 



272 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

We answer that it was owing to the innate purity and good- 
ness of his nature ; there was nothing in it that assimilated to 
vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often compelled 
him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into 
5 companionship with the depraved. His relish for humor and 
for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought 
him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; but he dis- 
criminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, 
or rather wrought from the whole those familiar pictures of life 

10 which form the staple of his most popular writings. 

Much, too, of this intact purity of heart may be ascribed to 
the lessons of his infancy under the paternal roof ; to the gen- 
tle, benevolent, elevated, unworldly maxims of his father, who 
" passing rich with forty pounds a year " infused a spirit into 

15 his child which riches could not deprave nor poverty degrade. 
Much of his boyhood, too, had been passed in the household of 
his uncle, the amiable and generous Contarine ; where he talked 
of literature with the good pastor, and practised music with 
his daughter, and delighted them both by his juvenile at- 

20 tempts at poetry. These early associations breathed a grace 
and refinement into his mind and tuned it up, after the rough 
sports on the greenj or the frolics at the tavern. These led him 
to turn from the roaring glees of the club, to listen to the harp 
of his cousin Jane ; and from the rustic triumph of " throwing 

25 sledge," to a stroll with his flute along the pastoral banks of 
the Inny. 

The gentle spirit of his father walked with him through 
life, a pure and virtuous monitor, and in all the vicissitudes of 
his career we find him ever more chastened in mind by the 

30 sweet and holy recollections of the home of his infancy. 

It has been questioned whether he really had any religious 
feeling. Those who raise the question have never considered 
well his writings ; his Vicar of Wakefield, and his pictures of 
the Village Pastor, present religion under its most endearing 

35 forms, and with a feeling that could only flow from the deep 

convictions of the heart. When his fair travelling companions 

at Paris urged him to read the Church Service on a Sunday, 

- he replied that " he was not worthy to do it." He had seen in 

early life the sacred offices performed by his father and his 



CHAPTER XLV 27 S 

brother with a solemnity which had sanctified them in his 
memory ; how could he presume to undertake such functions ? 
His religion has been called in question by Johnson and by 
Boswell : he certainly had not the gloomy hypochondriacal 
piety of the one, nor the babbling mouth -piety of the other ; 5 
but the spirit of Christian charity, breathed forth in his writ- 
ings and illustrated in his conduct, give us reason to believe he 
had the indwelling religion of the soul. 

We have made sufficient comments in the preceding chapters 
on his conduct in elevated circles of literature and fashion. The 10 
fairy gtfts which took him there were not accompanied by the 
gifts and graces necessary to sustain him in that artificial 
sphere. He can neither play the learned sage with Johnson, 
nor the fine gentleman with JBeauclerc ; though he has a mind 
replete with wisdom and natural shrewdness, and a spirit free 15 
from vulgarity. The blunders of a fertile but hurried intellect, 
and the awkward display of the student assuming the man of 
fashion, fix on him a character for absurdity and vanity which, 
like the charge of lunacy, it is hard to disprove, however weak 
the grounds of the charge and strong the facts in opposition to 20 
it. 

In truth, he is never truly in his place in these learned and 
fashionable circles, which talk and live for display. It is not 
the kind of society he craves. His heart yearns for domestic 
life ; it craves familiar, confiding intercourse, family firesides, 25 
the guileless and happy company of children; these bring out 
the heartiest and sweetest sympathies of his nature. 

"Had it been his fate," says the critic we have already 
quoted, "to meet a woman who could have loved him, despite 
his faults, and respected him despite his foibles, we cannot but 30 
think that his life and his genius would have been much more 
harmonious; his desultory affections would have been concen- 
trated, his craving self-love appeased, his pursuits more set- 
tled, his character more solid. A nature like Goldsmith's, so 
affectionate, so confiding — so susceptible to simple, innocent 35 
enjoyments — so dependent on others for the sunshine of exist- 
ence, does not flower if deprived of the atmosphere of home." 

The cravings of his heart in this respect are evident, we 
think, throughout his career ; and if we have dwelt with more 

T 



274 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

significancy than others upon his intercourse with the beautiful 
Horneck family, it is because we fancied we could detect, amid 
his playful attentions to one of its members, a lurking senti- 
ment of tenderness, kept down by conscious poverty and a 
5 humiliating idea of personal defects. A hopeless feeling of 
this kind — the last a man would communicate to his friends — 
might account for much of that fitfulness of conduct, and that 
gathering melancholy, remarked, but not comprehended by his 
associates, during the last year or two of his life ; and may have 

10 been one of the troubles of the mind which aggravated his last 
illness, and only terminated with his death. 

We shall conclude these desultory remarks with a few which 
have been used by us on a former occasion. From the general 
tone of Goldsmith's biography, it is evident that his faults, at 

15 the worst, were but negative, while his merits were great and 
decided. He was no one's enemy but his own ; his errors, in 
the main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so 
blended with humorous and even affecting circumstances, as to 
disarm anger and conciliate kindness. Where eminent talent 

20 is united to spotless virtue, we are awed and dazzled into 
admiration, but our admiration is apt to be cold and reveren- 
tial; while there is something in the harmless infirmities of a 
good and great, but erring individual, that pleads touchingly to 
our nature ; and we turn more kindly towards the object of our 

25 idolatry, when we find that, like ourselves, he is mortal and is 
frail. The epithet so often heard, and in such kindly tones, of 
" poor Goldsmith," speaks volumes. Few, who consider the 
real compound of admirable and whimsical qualities which 
form his character, would wish to prune away its eccentricities, 

30 trim its grotesque luxuriance, and clip it down to the decent 
formalities of rigid virtue. " Let not his frailties be remem- 
bered," said Johnson; "he was a very great man." But, for 
our part, we rather say, " Let them be remembered," since their 
tendency is to endear ; and we question whether he himself 

35 would not feel gratified in hearing his reader, after dwelling 
with admiration on the proofs of his greatness, close the volume 
with the kind-hearted phrase, so fondly and familiarly ejaca- 
lated, of " Poor Goldsmith." 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 



Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of tlie plain, 
Whfere health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, 
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed : 
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 5 

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
How often have I loitered o'er thy green, 
Where humble happiness endeared each scene ! 
How often have I paused on every charm, 
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, 10 

The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill, 
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade. 
For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 
How often have I blessed the coming day, 15 

When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labour free. 
Led up their s]3orts beneath the spreading tree. 
While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
The young contending as the old surveyed ; / 20 

And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground. 
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round ; 
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired. 
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired ; 
The dancing pair that simply sought renown 25 

By holding out to tire each other down ; 
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face. 
While secret laughter tittered round the place ; 
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love. 
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. 30 

275 



276 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

These were thy charms, sweet village 1 sports like these, 
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please ; 
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed ; 
These were thy charms — but all these charms are fled> 

5 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, 

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; 
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
And desolation saddens all thy green : 
One only master grasps the whole domain, 

10 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 

No more thy glassy brook reflects the day. 
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way ; 
Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 

15 Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies. 

And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all. 
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall ; 
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, 

20 Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade — 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made : 
25 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 

When once destroyed, can never be sujjplied. 

A time there was, ere England's griefs began. 
When every rood of ground maintained its man ; 
For him light labour spread her wholesome store, 
30 Just gave what life required, but gave no more : 
His best companions, innocence and health, 
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

But times are altered ; trade's unfeeling train 
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain : 
35 Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 211 

Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose, 

And every want to luxury allied, 

And every pang that folly pays to pride. 

Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom. 

Those calm desires that asked but little room, 5 

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, 

Lived in each look, and brightened all the green ; 

These, far departing, seek a kinder shore. 

And rural mirth and manners are no more. 

^weet Auburn ! parent of the blissful hour, 10 

Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
Here, as I take my solitary rounds, 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds. 
And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 15 

Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 

In all my wandrings round this world of care. 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 20 

Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
To husband out life's taper at the close, 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose. 
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still. 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, 25 

Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ; 
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 30 

Here to return — and die at home at last. 

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline. 
Retreats from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labour with an age of ease ; 35 

Who quits a world where strong temptations try. 



278 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep 
No surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
5 To spurn imploring famine from the gate ; 

But on he moves to meet his latter end. 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay. 
While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
10 And, all his prospects brightening to the last. 
His heaven commences ere the world be past ! 

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ; 
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 

15 The mingling notes came softened from below ; 

The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung. 
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young ; 
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, 
The playful children just let loose from school; 

20 The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; — 
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade. 
And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 
But now the sounds of population fail, 

25 No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, 

No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread. 
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 
All but yon widowed, solitary thing. 
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ; 

30 She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread. 

To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, 
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn, 
She only left of all the harmless train, 

35 The sad historian of the pensive plain ! 

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled. 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 279 

There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 

The viUage preacher's modest mansion rose. 

A man he was to all the country dear, 

And passing rich with forty pounds a year ; 

Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 5 

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place ; 

Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, 

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; 

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize. 

More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. 10 

HisHliouse was known to all the vagrant train. 

He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 

The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; 

The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 15 

Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; 

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away. 

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done. 

Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. 20 

Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow. 

And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 25 

And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; 
But in his duty prompt at every call. 
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; 
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 30 

He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
AUured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

Beside the bed where parting life was laid. 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed. 
The reverend champion stood. At his control 35 

Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 



280 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorned the venerable place; 
5 Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 

And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
E'en children followed with endearing wile, 

10 And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. 

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed. 
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

15 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread. 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way 

20 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 

There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule. 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view, 
I knew him well, and every truant knew : 

25 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 

The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
Full well the busy whisper circling round, 

30 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned : 

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught. 
The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
The village all declared how much he knew, 
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too ; 

35 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 

And even the story ran that he could gauge. 
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 281 

For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 

While words of learned length and thund'ring sound 

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 

That one small head could carry all he knew. 5 

But past is all his fame. The very spot, 

Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot. 

Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high, 
Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, lo 
Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired. 
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound. 
And news much older than their ale went round. 
Imagination fondly stoops to trace 

The parlour splendours of that festive place : 15 

The white-washed wall, the nicely-sanded floor, 
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ; 
The chest contrived a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
The pictures placed for ornament and use, 20 

The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; 
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day. 
With aspen boughs, and flowers and fennel gay; 
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show. 
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. 25 

Vain transitory splendours ! could not all 
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? 
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart 
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart ; 
Thither no more the jDeasant shall repair " 30 

To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; 
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; 
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 
Relax his ponderous strength and lean to hear; 35 

The host himself no longer shall be found 
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; 



282 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

I^or the coy maid, half-willing to be pressed, 
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 

Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
These simple blessings of the lowly train, 
5 To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 

One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, 
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; 
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 

10 Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. 

But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed. 
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain. 
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; 

15 And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy. 
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy. 

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey 
The rich man's power increase, the poor's decay, 
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 

20 Between a splendid and a happy land. 

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore. 
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; 
Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound, 
And rich men flock from all the world around. 

25 Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name 
That leaves our useful products still the same. 
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 

30 Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds: 

The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth ; 
His seat where solitary spots are seen. 
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; 

35 Around the world each needful product flies, 

For all the luxuries the world supplies ; 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 283 

While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all, 
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall. 

As some fair female, unadorned and plain. 
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, 5 

Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 
But when those charms are past, for charms are frail, 
When time advances, and when lovers fail. 
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 

In fill the glaring impotence of dress. 10 

Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed : 
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed. 
But verging to decline, its splendours rise. 
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; 

While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land 15 

The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 
And while he sinks, without one arm to save. 
The country blooms — a garden and a grave. 

Where then, ah ! where shall poverty reside. 
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ? 20 

If to some common's fenceless limits strayed 
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, 
And e'en the bare-worn common is denied. 

If to the city sped — what waits him there ? 25 

To see profusion that he must not share; 
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined 
To pamper luxury and thin mankind ; 
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know. 
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. 30 

Here while the courtier glitters in brocade. 
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade ; 
Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps display. 
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. 
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, 35 

Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train ; 



284 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! 
Sure these denote one universal joy! 
5 Are these thy serious thoughts? — Ah! turn thine eyes 
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, 
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed ; 
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 

10 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 

Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled, 
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, 
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 

15 When idly first, ambitious of the town. 

She left her wheel and robes of country brown. 

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, 
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain ? 
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
20 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. 

Ah, no ! To distant climes, a dreary scene, 
Where half the convex world intrudes between, 
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 

25 Far different there from all that charmed before, 

The various terrors of that horrid shore ; 
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 
And fiercely shed intolerable day ; 
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing ; 

30 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; 

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around ; 
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; 

35 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, 

And savage men more murderous still than they; 
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 285 

Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. 

Far different these from every former scene, 

The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green. 

The breezy covert of the warbling grove. 

That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. 5 

Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day. 
That called them from their native walks away ; 
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 
Hmig round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, 
Arffl took a long farewell, and wished in vain 10 

For seats like' these beyond the western main. 
And shuddering still to face the distant deep. 
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. 
The good old sire the first prepared to go 
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ; 15 

But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. 
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 
The fond companion of his helpless years, 
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 20 

And left a lover's for a father's arms. 
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose, 
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear, 
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear, 25 

Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief 
In all the silent manliness of grief. 

O luxury ! thou curst by Heaven's decree, 
How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee ! 
How do thy potions, with insidious joy, 30 

Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy ! 
Kingdoms, by thee to sickly greatness grown. 
Boast of a florid vigour not their own. 
At every draught more large and large they grow, 
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe ; 35 

Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound, 
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 



286 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Even now the devastation is begun, 
And half the business of destruction done ; 
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
I see the rural virtues leave the land. 
5 Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail 

That idly waiting flaps with every gale, 
Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
Contented toil, and hospitable care, 

10 And kind connubial tenderness are there ; 
And piety with wishes placed above. 
And steady loyalty, and faithful love. 
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid. 
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ; 

15 Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame. 

To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame : 
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; 
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, 

20 Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; 

Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel. 
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well ! 
Farewell ; and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
On- Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side, 

25 Whether where equinoctial fervours glow, 

Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
Redress the rigours of the inclement clinne ; 
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain ; 

30 Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 

Teach him, that states of native strength possessed, 
Though very poor, may still be very blest ; 
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away; 

35 While self-dependent power can time defy. 

As rocks resist the billows and the sky. 



NOTES 

PEEFACE 

p. 4, 1. 15. Tu se' lo mio maestro, etc. "Thou art my master 
and my author ; thou alone art he from whom I took the fair style 
that hath done me honor." — Dante, Inferno^ Canto I. Norton's 
translation. 

CHAPTER I 

p. 6, 1. 26. Curacy. In the Church of England a curate is an 
assistant to the rector. Rev. Charles Goldsmith was assistant to 
his wife's uncle, who lived at Kilkenny West. 

p. 7, 1. 15. He succeeded to the rectory. Most of the country 
parishes of the Church of England, and many city parishes as well, 
have rented lands or other interest- bearing property. The income 
goes to the rector for his support and for the care of the church. 
In such a case the rector is said to hold a living in the church. 
Some of these livings formerly, and perhaps a few even yet, might 
be handed down by a law of inheritance. 

p. 7, 1, 16. Lissoy. Village near Kilkenny West. 

p. 7, 1. 33. Man in Black. A character in Goldsmith's Citizen 
of the World. 

p. 9, 1. 17. Hornbook. A primer or first reading book, so called 
because it was bound with horn covers. 

p. 9, 1. 28. Wars of Queen Anne's time. The great war of 
Queen Anne's time was the War of the Spanish Succession, in 
which England, Germany, and the protestant countries of Europe 
were allied against France and Spain. 

287 



288 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 11-25 

p. 11, 1. 4. Sibylline leaves. The Sibylline books were docu- 
ments in the time of ancient Rome written in verse and supposed 
to have been given by one of the Sibyls or prophetesses to the king 
of Rome and to contain a prophecy of the Roman Empire. 

p. 12, 1. 9. Bishop Berkeley. An Irish philosopher of consid- 
erable reputation, born 1685, died 1753. 

p. 13, 1. 16. Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues. A 
doubtful tradition relates that Shakespeare was prosecuted for 
stealing deer from the game preserve of Sir Thomas Lucy. 

CHAPTER II 

p. 16, 1. 7. June, 1745. Austin Dobson in his Life of Gold- 
smith shows that this date is an error. Oliver entered Trinity, 
June 11, 1744, when he was less than sixteen years old. 

1. 9. Pensioner. There were several classes of students at 
Trinity. The pensioner was in the class above the sizer and paid 
for his board and other expenses. 

p. 16, 1. 14. Window-frame. Dobson says that the window- 
pane with Goldsmith's name scratched upon it has been removed 
to the manuscript room of the college, where it may still be seen. 

p. 18, 1. 3. A lad. Quoted from Inquiry into the State of 
Folite Learning in Europe^ Chap. IX. 

p. 18, 1. 37. Edmund Burke. An Irishman, 1729-1797, who 
became a member of the English Parliament and a powerful 
advocate for America in the struggle that preceded the American 
Revolution. 

p. 19, 1. 15. Catch-pole (catch-poll). A bailiff' s assistant. 

p. 21, 1. 28. 0. S. stands for old style. In 1751 the calendar 
was changed in England by act of Parliament so that eleven 
days were dropped ; i.e. the 3d of September, 1752, was declared 
by Parliament to be the 14th. 

p. 25, 1. 4. Tony Lumpkin and his associates. These are char- 
acters in Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer. 



Pages 25-43] NOTES 289 

p. 25, 1. 8. Three Jolly Pigeons. The sign of an alehouse in 
She Stoops to Conquer. 

CHAPTER III 

p. 27, 1. 10. The hero of La Mancha. Don Quixote, 
p. 27, 1. 29. Quoted from Citizen of the World, Letter XXVII. 
p. 28, 1. 32. Cerberus. The three-headed dog that guarded the 
entrance to the lower world. See Classical Dictionary. 

CHAPTER IV 

p. 32, 1. 5. The Temple. The Middle Temple and the Inner 
Temple belong to an organization of lawyers called The Templfe, 
from the Knights Templars, from whom the site of the buildings 
has descended. They are occupied mainly by lawyers and students 
of law. 

p. 34, 1. 13. Cawdy. Obsolete form of caddie (from old French 
cadet) , a lad who attends for small services, as at golf links, etc. 

p. 36, 1. 16. Turn-spit-dog. When meat was roasted on a turn- 
spit before an open fire a dog was sometimes put into a wheel or 
treadmill to keep the meat turning. 

p. 37, 1. 23. Ceres. The goddess of agriculture, in whose honor 
were held many religious ceremonies. 

p. 38, 1. 34. Bincly. The name of this acquaintance of Gold- 
smith is printed Binely in Prior's Life ; Binley in Irving's Life ; 
Einecly in Forster's Life, I, 448 ; Bincly in Forster's Life, I, 51, and 
in his Index. 

p. 40, 1. 18. Albinus. A famous German physician, who died 
in 1770. 

CHAPTER V 

p. 42, 1. 29. A whimsical picture. Compare Irving's satire of 
the Dutch in his Knickerbocker History of New York. 

p. 43, 1. 8. Strephon. A shepherd lover in Sir Philip Sidney's 
Arcadia. 

u 



290 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 45-52 

p. 45, 1. 36. Mademoiselle Clairon. A celebrated French 
actress, 1723-1803, of whom Goldsmith wrote with much sympathy 
in The Bee. 

p. 46, 1. 14. Events have testified. The French Revolution 
began in 1789. 

p. 46, 1. 18. Voltaire. The noted French writer and free thinker, 
1694-1778. There seems to be some error in the account which 
follows, for Voltaire was banished from Paris at this time. Perhaps 
Goldsmith saw him at some other place. 

p. 48, 1. 10. Piedmont. A district in northern Italy at the foot 
of the Alps, as its name signifies. 

p. 48, 1. 28. He is said to have taken. There is still some doubt 
that Goldsmith ever took his degree. Dr. C. M. Campbell in the 
Athenoeum for July 21, 1894 (p. 101), writes that in reply to a re- 
quest from him one of the officials at Padua University has written 
that he is unable to find Oliver Goldsmith's name among the 
records. 

CHAPTER VI 

p. 49, 1. 35. The death of his uncle Contarine. This must be an 
error, for he is referred to in Chapter IX as yet alive. 

p. 50, 1. 26. Philosophic Vagabond. See Vicar of Wakefield, 
Chapter XX. 

p. 51, 1. 20. Quoted from Citizen of the World, Letter CXVII. 

p. 51, 1. 25. Sir Joshua Reynolds. Perhaps the most famous 
portrait painter England has ever had, 1723-1792. He was a mem- 
ber of the Literary Club and a warm friend of Goldsmith. See 
Chapter XIV. 

p. 52, 1. 4. Anodyne necklace. Anodyne means relieving pain ; 
hence it is here used humorously for a hangman's halter. 

p. 52, 1. 19. Quoted from The Bee, No. VL 

p. 52, 1. 33. Southwark. A district in London. 



Pages 53-58] NOTES 291 

p. 63, 1. 14. Mr. Samuel Richardson. Our first great novelist, 
1699-1761. 

p. 53, 1. 26. -ffiJsculapius. Son of Apollo and the most famous 
physician in Greek mythology. 

p. 54, 1. 23. Written Mountains. These were inscriptions in 
Aramaic, accompanied by rude drawings, engraved upon the rocky 
sides of the hills near Mt. Sinai. Accounts of them may be 
read in Burckhardt's 8yria, 606-613 (ed. 1822). "These inscrip- 
tions," says Forster, "cover the rocks, some of them twelve or fifteen 
feet higii, along a range of nearly three leagues, written from right 
to left." In Goldsmith's time they were supposed to be of great 
antiquity. "When interpreted, however, they were found to be no 
earlier than the first or second century a.d. , and to contain noth- 
ing more important than the names of Arabs who in passing had 
scratched them upon the rocks. 

CHAPTER VII 

p. 56, 1. 15. Whig principles. The two great parties in Eng- 
land were the Whig and the Tory, the former representing demo- 
cratic and the latter aristocratic ideals. Their successors are the 
Lib'eral and the Conservative. 

p. 57, 1. 9. Grub Street is famous in the history of English 
literature as the home of needy and inferior writers. It is now 
called Milton Street, 

p. 57, 1. 10. Dryden. John Dryden, 1631-1700, was the leading 
English poet in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and a 
clear, strong writer of prose. 

p. 57, 1.^10. Otway. Dramatic poet and contemporary of 
Dryden, 1651-1685. 

p. 58, 1. 18. Johnson. Samuel Johnson was the great critic, 
poet, and prose writer of the eighteenth century. See Chapter XII 
and the following chapters for his relations with Goldsmith. 



292 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 59-65 

CHAPTER VIII 

p. 59, 1. 2. This person was no other. See Vicar of Wakefield^ 
Chapter XVIII. 

p. 69, 1. 20. Temple Exchange Coffee-House. The coffee- 
houses of the eighteenth century combined the restaurant and 
the modern club. There were large numbers of them in London, 
and they were centres for politicians, literary men, dramatists, 
business men, etc. A man might claim residence at a coffee-house 
as he would now at a club. 

p. 59, 1. 21. Temple Bar was a famous gateway before the 
Temple in London, and marked one of the entrances to the city 
proper. It was removed to Waltham in 1878 and replaced by a 
monument called Temple Bar Memorial. 

p. 60, 1. 5. Unpatronized by the great. It was the custom, 
until Johnson ended it by his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, 
for an author to dedicate his book to some great man who would 
in return bestow sums of money on the author to enable him to 
pursue his literary tastes. 

p. 62, 1. 2. The Campaign. Addison's poem, occasioned by 
the great victory of Blenheim, August 13, 1704. 

p. 62, 1. 35. Maladie du pais. Homesickness. 

p. 63, 1. 1. Unco'. Very. 

p. 63, 1. 12. Usher. James Usher, 1580-1656, was a noted 
British theologian and scholar, best known by his scheme of Bibli- 
cal chronology, which was, until recently, universally accepted. 

CHAPTER IX 

p. 65, 1. 2. Like Raleigh. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have 
burned up the manuscript of the second part of his History of the 
World because of some complaint from his publisher. 

p. 65, 1. 18. An East-India Director. The East India Company 
was one of the most powerful institutions in England. It was 



Pages 66-86] JS'OTES 293 

organized for purposes of trade between India and England, but 
became all powerful in the government of India. 

p. Q6, 1. 4. College intimate. Edward Mills (printed as Wells 
in the earlier editions of Irving's Life) was a fellow-student with 
Goldsmith at Dublin. The letter here referred to is printed in full 
in Eorster's Life and Times of Goldsinith, Vol. I, pp. 136-137. 

p. 70, 1. 18. Butler. Samuel Butler is known as the author of 
the Hudihras^ a poem satirizing the Puritans. Like many another 
author J^e struggled with poverty. 

CHAPTER X 

p. 71, 1. 20. Coromandel. A district on the eastern coast of 
India. 

p. 76, 1. 16. Old Bailey. A famous old prison in London. 

p. 82, 1. 7. Dear of the postage. The postage was not pre- 
paid, as it was not in this country until within fifty or sixty 
years. 

p. 82, 1. 22. And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew. 
Charles I is said to have framed the following : " Urge no healths ; 
Profane no divine ordinance ; Touch no state matters ; Reveal no 
secrets ; Pick no quarrels ; Make no comparisons ; Maintain no 
ill opinions ; Keep no bad company ; Encourage no vice ; Make 
no long meals ; Repeat no grievances ; Lay no wagers." 

p. 83, 1. 11. The Henriade. An epic poem by Voltaire. 

CHAPTER XI 

p. 86, 1. 3. Ishmaelites of the press. For the story of Ishmael 
see Genesis xvi and xxi. It was proj)hesied of Ishmael that 
his hand should be against every man, and every man's hand 
against him. 

p. 86, 1. 8. Dreaming of genius. This bit of satire is taken 
from The Bace^ by Cuthbert Shaw : — 



294 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 86-94 

" Mr. Cuthbert Shaw, alike distinguished by his genius, mis- 
fortunes, and misconduct, published this year [1766] a poem called 
The Bace, by Mercurius Spur, Esq., in which he whimsically made 
the living poets of England contend for preeminence of fame 
by running : — 

" ' Prove by their heels the prowess of the head.' " 

— BoswelVs Life of Johnson^ Chapter XV. 

p. 86, 1. 23. Periodical publications. What similar publication 
did Irving publish ? 

p. 87, 1. 9. Walpole. Horace Walpole was a distinguished man 
of letters, 1717-1797, and son of the famous statesman, Sir Eobert 
Walpole. 

p. 88, 1. 7. The Society of Arts grew into the present Koyal 
Academy. 

CHAPTER XII 

p. 89, 1. 29. Guthrie. A political and historical writer of small 
reputation. 

p. 89, 1. 29. Murphy. A dramatic writer and an actor. 

p. 89, i. 29, Christopher Smart. An unfortunate hack writer 
who never attained eminence. 

p. 90, 1. 1. Bickerstaff. Isaac Bickerstaff was an Irish dramatist, 
born about 1735, who for a time enjoyed the society of Goldsmith, 
Johnson, and others. Later he fell into vice, fled the country, and 
after forty years in exile was said to be poor and despised of all 
orders of people. 

p. 92, 1. 14. Savage. Richard Savage, 1698-1743, was an obscure 
poet remembered for his association with Johnson. 

p. 93, 1. 19. Rosciad. Churchill's Bosciad was a satire on London 
actors and was very famous in its day. 

p. 94, 1. 9. The Aristophanes of the day. Aristophanes, the 
great comic dramatist of Greece, lived in the fourth century before 
Christ. 



Pages 95-105] NOTES 295 

CHAPTER XIII 

p. 95, 1. 11. Citizen of the World. Letter CVIII. 

p. 96, 1. 10. Cock-Lane Ghost. In 1762 a man by the name of 
Pearsons and his little daughter perpetrated an imposture that 
became widely known. The place was Cock Lane, Smithfield, 
London. Knockings and strange noises were heard, and a 
"luminous" lady was seen. Dr. Johnson was one of those who 
visited the place, and his visit helped to make it notorious. 

p. 96,J. 38. The White Conduit House was a suburban pleasure 
resort for a rather motley class of people. See Chapter XXI, where 
Goldsmith calls it " a Cockney Elysium," 

p. 97, 1. 31. Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773, was the author of a 
widely read book, Lord Chesterfield'' s Letters to His Son, and the 
recipient of Johnson's famous letter declining his patronage. See 
note, p. 292. 

Lord Orrery and Lord Lyttelton were cultured literary men of 
the eighteenth century. 

p. 100, 1. 9. His blind pensioner. Miss Williams was one of 
the poor unfortunates whom Johnson, out of the goodness of his 
heart, provided with a home. 

CHAPTER XIV 

p. 101, 1. 2. Hogarth the painter was a most interesting man 
and a great genius. In some kinds of painting he was not suc- 
cessful, but he won great renown for his series of pictures to express 
a story as Marriage a la Mode and TJie Rake''s Progress. See 
McClure''s Magazine, April, 1903, for an interesting and instructive 
article on Hogarth by Mr. John La Farge. 

p. 103, 1. 2. Sir James Mackintosh, 1765-1832, was a prominent 
English statesman. 

p. 105, 1. 6. A grant of free-warren. A royal franchise to kill 
animals within a certain area was called a warren. 



296 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 106-118 

p. 106, 1.. 26. Lord Lansdowne. George Granville, 1667-1735, 
author and politician. 

p. 107, 1. 5. The Rake's Progress. See note above on Hogarth. 

p. 108, 1. 6. Falstaff, the huge, gluttonous, coarse, jolly friend 
of Prince Henry in Shakespeare's Henry IV. See Henry IV, 
Part I, Act V, the end of scene 4. 

CHAPTER XV 

p. 109, 1. 25. Novel in question. This story, taken by Irving 
from Boswell's Life of Johnson (see Napier's ed., Vol. I, p. 329; 
Vol. ni, p. 223), has been questioned, but appears to be substan- 
tially true. The amount received for the book was sixty guineas 
instead of sixty pounds, as shown by Boswell's second reference 
to the sale, and also by the entry of the transaction preserved in 
the bookseller's accounts. The sale seems to have taken place 
Oct. 28, 1762. The book was taken in equal shares by three book- 
sellers. It was not published until four years later. In the mean- 
time the Traveller had appeared, and Goldsmith's fame had become 
established. 

The first four editions, however, of the Vicar of Wakefield, 
were published at a loss to the publishers. After the fourth edition 
— which paid a profit of about thirty-two guineas to each partner — 
was turned out, Newbery sold his third interest for five guineas, so 
little faith had he in the future of the book. (See Welsh, Charles, 
A Bookseller of the Last Century. London, 1885, pp. 54-62.) 

CHAPTER XVI 

p. 114, 1. 21. Nil te quaesiveris extra. You should seek noth- 
ing further. 

p. 1 16, 1. 22. The Hermit. See Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter VIII. 

p. 118, 1. 4, Philautos, etc. Pseudonyms chosen probably for 
their classic sound rather than for any significance of meaning. 



Pages 121-135] NOTES 297 

Translated they mean lover of one's self, lover of truth, lover of 
freedom, and lover of man. 

CHAPTER XVII 

p. 121, 1. 33. Rogers. Samuel Rogers was an English poet, 
1763-1855, much resi)ected by his associates when Irving wrote 
this book, on account of his age, experience, and judgment. 

p. 125, 1. 1. Blainville's " Travels " was an account of the travels 
of Monsieur de Blainville through several countries of Europe. It 
had recently (1757) been translated into English from the author's 
manuscript, and the publishers were making use of Goldsmith's 
fame as author of the Traveller to advertise the book. The following 
is the letter of Goldsmith which they used as an advertisement : — 

"I have read the Travels of Monsieur de Blainville with the 
highest pleasure. As far as I am capable of judging they are at 
once accurate, copious, and entertaining. I am told they are now 
first translated from the Author's Manuscript in the French Lan- 
guage, which has never been published : and if so, they are a valu- 
able acquisition to ours. The Translation as I am informed has 
been made by Men of Eminence, and is not unworthy of the 
Original. All I have to add is, that, to the best of my opinion, 
Blainville's Travels is the most valuable Work of this kind hitherto 
published : Containing the most judicious Instruction to those who 
read for Amusement, and being the surest Guide to those who 
intend to undertake the same Journey. 

" Oliver Goldsmith. 

"Temple, March 2, 1767." 

CHAPTER XIX 

p. 135, 1. 27. Every Man in his Humor was one of "rare Ben 
Jonson's " most famous plays. 



298 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 139-159 1 

CHAPTER XX 

p. 139, 1. 31. Whitehead. Though poet laureate, Whitehead 
was considered weak and dull. Goldsmith seems to have had a 
very strong feeling against him, as did Johnson, for Forster says 
in regard to Garricl^'s proposal, that of all the slights that the 
manager offered to the poet, this was forgotten last. 



CHAPTER XXI 

p. 141, 1. 18. The sometime Roscius. Davies was at one time 
an actor, and hence called Roscius from the great Roman comic 
actor Quintus Roscius. 

p. 143, 1. 2. Junius and Wilkes. Junius was the pseudonym 
used by an unknown writer of some very caustic political letters. 
These became famous, and consequently aroused the curiosity of 
people to discover the author. John Wilkes, 1727-1797, was 
another critic of the government, a political agitator, and a bold, 
often unwise champion of the rights of the people. 

CHAPTER XXII 
p. 147, 1. 15. Talleyrand. A French statesman, 1754-1838. 

CHAPTER XXIII 

p. 149, 1. 26. Blackstone's Commentaries has been for many 
years one of the great authorities in the study of law. 

p. 152, 1. 7. General Oglethorpe, 1696-1785, was a British gen- 
eral and founder of the colony of Georgia. See beginning of 
Chapter XXXIII. 

CHAPTER XXV 

p. 159, 1. 10. The Jessamy Bride. This name has been taken 
as the title of a very interesting novel by F. Frankfort Moore, 



Pages 15&-176] NOTES 299 

which treats of the time of Goldsmith, and introduces several 
characters mentioned in this and the following chapters. 

p. 159, 1, 28. Angelica Kauffman. A celebrated Swiss painter 
and friend of Reynolds. 

CHAPTER XXVI 

p. 163, 1. 21. Lucius Florus. A Roman historian of the second 
century a.d. 

p. 163, 1. 21 . Eutropius. A Roman of the fourth century. 

p. 163, 1. 22. Vertot. A French authority on Roman history, 
1655-1735. 

p. 163, 1. 37. Pliny. Pliny the Elder, 23-79 a.d. His only 
extant work is his Natural History in thirty -seven books, really an 
encyclopaedia of natural science. 

p. 163, 1. 38. Buffon was a celebrated French naturalist of Gold- 
smith's time. 

CHAPTER XXVII 

p. 171, 1. 10. Likeness by Reynolds. See frontispiece to this 
volume. 

p. 172, 1. 6. Forsitan et. Perchance sometime our name will 
be inscribed with these. 

p. 172, 1. 9. Jacobite rebels. A considerable number of Eng- 
lishmen through the greater part of the eighteenth century were 
true to the heirs of the Stuart kings and were called Jacobites from 
Jacobus, the Latin for James. 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

p. 176, 1. 33. Gay's. John Gay was a poet and dramatist of 
some note at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Some years 
after his death a chair, said to have been his favorite chair, was 
sold among the effects of one of his relatives. Later, about ninety 
years after the poet's death, a cabinet-maker, in the course of some 



300 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 187-191 

repairs, found a secret drawer containing, among other papers, 
some poems in manuscript. They were published in a volume 
called Gay''s Chair. 

CHAPTEK XXX 

p. 187, 1. 21. Lord Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount 
Bolingbroke, 1678-1751, was one of the most brilliant statesmen 
and literary men of the early part of the eighteenth century. 

p. 187, 1. 32. Should prove a Capua. During the Second Punic 
War, in 216 e.g., Hannibal took up winter quarters in the luxurious 
city of Capua, where it is said his brave warriors became effeminate 
and lost their love of war. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

p. 190, 1. 11. Chatterton. The story of Thomas Chatterton has 
a pathetic interest for us. Although he died in his eighteenth year, 
he has left a record as an English poet of great genius. Possessed 
of great pride and independence, he came to London without friends 
and without means, and attempted to support himself with his pen. 
The Rowley poems here referred to have given him a reputation, 
but it came too late. Discouraged and starving, he took his own 
life Aug. 24, 1770. 

p. 190, 1. 26. Ossian. James Macpherson published in 1762 
some poems which he offered as translations of the epic poems of 
Ossian, a mythical Celtic poet. As in the case of Chatterton, there 
have been discussions over the genuineness of the original. The 
general opinion to-day seems to be that th-e work was Macpherson's, 
but founded on a considerable fund of tradition. 

p. 191, 1. 9. Gray and Mason were poets of this time. Gray was 
a distinguished scholar, and therefore his opinion on such a subject 
would have great weight. 



Pages 198-215] NOTES 301 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

p. 198, 1. 38. Drawcansir. A braggart, from a boastful charac- 
ter ill The Rehearsal^ a seventeenth-century play. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

p. 202, 1. 39. Boileau. A distinguished French critic and satir- 
ist, 1636-1711. 

p. 203, 1. 8. Haec studia, etc. These studies spend the night 
with us ; they travel with us ; they go with us to the country. 

p. 204, 1. 26. Lusiad. A Portuguese poem of the sixteenth 
century. 

CHAPTER XXXV 

p. 208, 1. 21. Mrs. Thrale, afterward Mrs. Piozzi, was an inti- 
mate friend of Johnson and other literary men, and wrote in 1786 
Anecdotes of Johnson. 

p. 211, 1. 5. The Stratford Jubilee. In 1768 Boswell published 
a book on Corsica, which met with considerable success and did 
much for General Paoli (see note, p. 301). Intoxicated with his suc- 
cess, he made a fool of himself on various occasions. One of these 
was the Stratford Jubilee, September, 1769, where he appeared in 
the dress of a Corsican and with Viva la Liberia written on his hat. 
Later he was senseless enough to write a full description of himself 
on this occasion for the London Magazine. 

p. 211, 1. ll. Scrub is an amusing valet in Farquhar's Beaux' 
Stratagem. 

p. 211, 1. 31. Malagrida was an Italian priest who was burned 
at the stake for heresy. 

p. 215, 1. 7. Pantheon here refers to a London concert hall. 

p. 215, 11. 8-10. Hippocrene and Aganippe were fountains sacred 
to the muses, hence sources of poe|ry. 



302 OLIVER GOLDSMITH [Pages 225-336 

CHAPTER XXXVII 

p. 225, 1. 1. The neighing of the horse. The son of Hystaspes 
was Darius, king of Persia. " Seven princes of Persia agreed tliat 
he sliould be king whose horse neighed first ; as the liorse of Darius 
was the first to neigh, Darius was proclaimed king. ' ' — Brewer. 

p. 225, 1. 5. To have a flapper. "Those persons [in Laputa] 
wlio are able to afford it always keep a flapper in their family. The 
business of this officer is gently to stroke the mouth of him who is 
to speak, and the right ear of him who is to listen." — Gulliver'' s 
Travels^ Part III, Chapter II. 

p. 227, 1. 23. Ride, si sapis. Laugh if you are wise. 

p. 229, 1. 14. The sum which accrued. "It is consolatory to 
think that in spite of every obstacle, She Stoops to Conquer was 
acted for many nights, and besides being twice commanded by 
royalty itself brought its author, at his benefits, the more substan- 
tial gratification of some four or five hundred pounds, to which 
must be added a further amount from the publication of the play 
in book form." — Austin Dobson, Goldsmith, Great Writers 
Series, p. 172. 

p. 229, 1. 30. Vous vous noyez par vanite. You harm yourself 
by your vanity. 

p. 231, 1. 9. Brise le miroir, etc. Break your faithless mirror 
which conceals the truth. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

p. 234, 1. 8. Miss Burney. English novelist, 1752-1840, author 
of Evelina. 

p. 236, 1. 10. General Paoli was a native of Corsica and a brave 
soldier in her wars ; but when Corsica was transferred to France, in 
1769, he sought refuge in England. He afterward went to France 
for a short time, but remained in England most of the time till his 
death in 1807. 



Pages 240-265] , NOTES 303 

p. 240, 1. 30. Bos well. The student who wishes to compare 
Irving' s impression of Boswell with that of others may refer to 
Macaulay's two Essays on Johnson and to Carlyle's Essay on 
Johnson. 

CHAPTER XL 

p. 244, 1. 10. Launcelot Gobbo. Irving has evidently confused 
Launcelot Gobbo in the Merchant of Venice with Launce in Tvjo 
Gentlemen of Verona ; it is in the latter play, Act IV, scene 4, that 
we find the charge referred to. 

CHAPTER XLII 

p. 251, 1. 8. Montezuma, last Aztec emperor of Mexico, lived 
about 1500, some 1800 years after Alexander. 

CHAPTER XLIII 

p. 254, 1. 24. The story of Ugolino. Ugolino, an Italian of the 
thirteenth century, was thrown with his two sons into a tower and 
left to die of hunger. See Dante's Inferno^ Canto XXXIII. 

p. 258, 1. 14. Scarron. A French writer of the seventeenth century. 

p. 261, 1. 12. Woodfall was a dramatic critic who had offended 
Garrick and others by his criticism. Hence he is here associated 
with Kenrick and Kelly. 

CHAPTER XLIV 

p. 263, 1. 4. He shifted his trumpet. Sir Joshua was so deaf 
that he used an ear trumpet. 

p. 265, 1. 20. Ninon de I'Enclos. Annie I'Enclos was a noted 
French woman of pleasure, who received in her salon the highest 
society of her time. 



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Browning, Mrs., Poems (Selected). By Miss Hersey, Boston, Mass. 
Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Edited by S. C. Newsom, Manual 

Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind. 
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Shakespeare's As You Like It. Edited by Charles Robert Gaston, 
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Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Edited by George W. Hufford and 
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Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Edited by Charlotte W. Under- 
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Shelley and Keats (Selections from). Edited by S. C. Newsom, Manual 
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Southern Poems. Edited by W. L, Weber, Professor of English Litera- 
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Tennyson's The Princess. Edited by Wilson Farrand, Newark 
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Stevenson's Treasure Island. Edited by Hiram Albert Vance, Ph. D. 
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Mrs. Browning's Poems. Selections. Edited by Heloise E. Hersey, 

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